No. We as consumers make informed choices about the foods we feed our children. No one can argue that we make the best choices.
And we as consumers make informed choices about smoking. We are bombarded with ads for thousands of products, and we respond to those ads which reinforce our needs and desires.
She crossed and recrossed her legs every twenty minutes or so, and each crossing was duly noted by the packs of lawyers around both tables and by the six male jurors and most of the females as well.
Dr. McQuade was pleasant to look at and easy to believe. Her testimony made perfect sense, and she connected with most of the jurors.
Rohr sparred with her politely for an hour on cross but didn't land a serious punch.
Chapter Thirty
According to Napier and Nitchman, Mr. Cristano at Justice desperately wanted a full report on what had happened last night when Hoppy met Millie for their latest personal visit. "Everything?" Hoppy asked. The three were huddled over a rickety table in a smoky diner, sipping boiled coffee from paper cups and waiting for greasy grilled cheese sandwiches.
"Skip the personal stuff," Napier said, doubtful if there was much personal stuff to skip.
If they only knew, Hoppy thought, still quite proud of himself. "Well, I showed Millie the memo on Robilio," he said, not knowing how much of the truth he should tell.
"And?"
"And, well, she read it."
"Of course she read it. Then what did she do?" Napier asked.
"What was her response?" Nitchman asked.
Sure, he could lie and tell them she was stunned by the memo, believed every word of it, and couldn't wait to show it to her pals on the jury. That's what they wanted to hear. But Hoppy didn't know what to do. Lying could only make matters worse. "She didn't respond too well," he said, then told them the truth.
When the sandwiches arrived, Nitchman left to call Mr. Cristano. Hoppy and Napier ate without looking at each other. Hoppy felt like such a failure. Surely he was one step closer to prison.
"When do you see her again?" asked Napier.
"Not sure. The Judge hasn't said yet. There's a chance the trial could be over this weekend."
Nitchman returned and took his seat. "Mr. Cristano is on his way," he said gravely, and Hoppy's stomach began to churn. "He'll be here late tonight and wants to meet with you first thing in the morning."
"Sure."
"He is not a happy man."
"Neither am I."
ROHR SPENT his lunch hour locked in his office with Cleve, doing the dirty work that had to be kept to themselves. Most of the other lawyers used runners like Cleve to spread cash and chase cases and perform dark little deeds not taught in law school, but none of them would ever admit to such unethical activity. Trial lawyers keep their runners to themselves.
Rohr had several choices. He could tell Cleve to tell Derrick Maples to get lost. He could pay Derrick Maples $25,000 in cash, and he could promise another $25,000 for each plaintiff's vote in the final verdict, assuming there would be at least nine. This would cost $225,000 at most, a sum Rohr was perfectly willing to pay. But he was extremely doubtful Angel Weese could deliver more than two votes-her own and maybe Loreen Duke's. She was not a leader. He could manipulate Derrick into approaching the lawyers for the defense, then try to catch them in bed together. This would probably result in Angel's getting removed, an event Rohr did not want.
Rohr could wire Cleve, capture incriminating statements from Derrick, then threaten the kid with criminal prosecution if he didn't lean on his girlfriend. This was risky, because the bribery plot had been hatched in Rohr's own office.
They covered each scenario with the seasoned judgment of men who'd done it before. A hybrid was developed.
"Here's what we'll do," Rohr said. "We'll give him fifteen grand now, promise the other ten after the verdict, and we'll also get him on tape now. We'll mark some of the bills, set him up for later. We'll promise him twenty-five for the other votes, and if we get our verdict, then we'll screw him when he demands the rest. We'll have him on tape, and when he makes noise we'll threaten to call the FBI."
"I like it," Cleve said. "He gets his money, we get our verdict, he gets screwed. Sounds like justice to me."
"Get yourself wired and get the cash. This needs to be done this afternoon."
BUT DERRICK had other plans. They met in a lounge at the Resort Casino, a dark bar sadly filled with losers massaging their losses with cheap drinks while outside the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was inching toward seventy.
Derrick wasn't about to get a postverdict screwing. He wanted Angel's twenty-five thousand in cash, now, up front, and he also wanted a "deposit," as he called it, for each of the other jurors. A preverdict deposit. In cash too, of course, something reasonable and fair, say, five thousand per juror. Cleve did the quick math, and got it wrong. Derrick was figuring on a unanimous verdict, so the deposit of five grand times eleven other jurors worked out nicely to fifty-five thousand dollars. Add Angel's, and all Derrick wanted was eighty thousand cash now.
He knew a girl in the clerk's office, and this friend had looked at the file. "You guys are suing the tobacco company for millions," he said, every word getting captured by a body mike in Cleve's shirt pocket. "Eighty thousand is a drop in the bucket."
"You're crazy," Cleve said.
"And you're crooked."
"There's no way we can pay eighty thousand cash. Like I said before, when the money gets too big, then we run the risk of getting caught."
"Fine. I'll go talk to the tobacco company."
"You do that. I'll read about it in the newspapers."
They didn't finish their drinks. Cleve again left early, but this time Derrick did not chase him.
THE PARADE of beauties continued Thursday afternoon as Cable put on the stand Dr. Myra Sprawling-Goode, a black professor and researcher at Rutgers who turned every head in the depraved courtroom as she presented herself for testimony. She was almost six feet tall, as striking and slender and well dressed as the last witness. Her creamy light brown skin creased perfectly as she smiled at the jurors, a smile that lingered on Lonnie Shaver, who actually smiled back.
Cable had an unlimited budget when he began his search for experts, so he was not compelled to use people who weren't sharp and glib and able to connect with average folk. He had videotaped Dr. Sprawling-Goode twice before he hired her, then once during her deposition in Rohr's office. Like all his witnesses, she had spent two days getting grilled in a mock courtroom setting a month before ,the trial began. She crossed her legs and the courtroom took a collective deep breath.
She was a professor of marketing with two doctorates and impressive credentials, no surprise. She'd spent eight years in advertising on Madison Avenue after she had completed her education, then returned to academia, where she belonged. Her field of expertise was consumer advertising, a subject she taught at the graduate level and one she researched continually. Her purpose at the trial soon became clear. A cynic might have claimed she was there to look pretty, to connect with Lonnie Shaver and Loreen Duke and Angel Weese, to make them proud that a fellow African-American was perfectly capable of projecting expert opinions in this crucial trial.
She was actually there because of Fitch. Six years earlier, after a scare in New Jersey in which a jury stayed out three days before returning with a defense verdict, Fitch had hatched the plan to find an attractive female researcher, preferably at a reputable university, to take a chunk of grant money and study cigarette advertising and its effects on teenagers. The parameters of the project would be vaguely defined by the source of the money, and Fitch was hoping the study would one day be useful in a trial.