The jury

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The jury (original title: A Time to Kill ) is a novel by the American author John Grisham from 1989 , which quickly became a bestseller . The German translation by Andreas Brandhorst was first published in 1992 by Heyne , Munich . In this publishing house alone, the book had a total of 44 editions by 2007.

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In the fictional small town of Clanton in the American state of Mississippi , ten year old Tonya Hailey is brutally raped by two drunk white men, Billy Ray Cobb and James “Pete” Williard. When the two men are taken to the courthouse for an initial hearing, she shoots Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey.

The lawsuit that is then initiated against Carl Lee Hailey turns into a sensational trial. As a black man who dares in the American South lynching to practice his daughter to the white tormentors, he expected the death sentence. The young lawyer Jake Brigance takes on this case. He is supported by his friends Lucien Wilbanks and Harry Rex Vonner, both lawyers themselves, and later also by law student Ellen Roark. With the case clear - Carl Lee meticulously prepared the murders and has been clearly identified - the process is a defense challenge. The only way to save Carl Lee is to make him appear insane. This is supposed to serve as a fig leaf for the jury so as not to punish Carl Lee's vigilante justice.

The arrogant prosecutor Rufus Buckley tries to instrumentalise the case to boost his political career. He uses his contacts and intimidates the presiding judge Omar "Ichabod" Noose. Noose subsequently rejects Jake's motion to try the case in another district. In Ford County, Carl Lee therefore has to answer to a jury of twelve white jurors.

Billy Ray's brother Freddy swears revenge and gets in touch with the Ku Klux Klan , who want to use the negotiation as an opportunity for self-expression. Shortly thereafter, the KKK tried to carry out a bomb attack on Jake's house, which could be prevented thanks to an anonymous informant who calls himself "Mickey Mouse". Jake sends his wife and daughter out of town to protect them and is watched over by the police himself. The man is then attacked and beaten up by Jake's secretary, Ethel Twitty. He dies of his injuries in the hospital. Wooden crosses are burned in the front yards of potential jury members to intimidate them. On the first day of the trial, the KKK and black protesters fought in a street battle after Stump Sisson, the KKK's “Great Dragon”, was hit and killed by a Molotov cocktail. As a result, Sheriff Walls calls for reinforcements from the state police, and the mayor calls the National Guard into town to keep things tidy, which Jake doesn't necessarily dislike, as the aggressive environment surrounding the process will definitely give him ammo for the second Instance supplies.

The KKK does not give up, however: A sniper shoots Jake, but thanks to the previous warning from "Mickey Mouse" he "only" hits one of the soldiers escorting him. Then Ellen Roark is kidnapped on her way home. After her hair has been shaved, she is left in the forest, where she rescues "Mickey Mouse". The chairman of the jury is threatened with a knife one night. Jake's house is later set on fire. Eventually, the KKK members tortured and murdered "Mickey Mouse", one of Jake's former clients, because they identified him as the traitor.

Jake holds on to the case despite massive attempts at intimidation. He can discredit the psychologist called up by the public prosecutor's office by showing that he has never classified a defendant as insane.

Tens of thousands of black protesters gather in the city on the day the verdict is pronounced. Intimidated by the angry crowd, most of the jury did not dare to try Carl Lee. A unanimous acquittal, however, is only achieved through a thought experiment by a jury: She asks the other jurors to imagine that Tonya and Carl Lee Hailey were white, the rapists were black. Carl Lee is finally acquitted because he was insane at the time of the crime.

Connection to other novels

Two of the main characters from The Jury reappear in Grisham's 2004 novel The List . Harry Rex Vonner is the first local to become a friend of Willie Traynor, the protagonist. Lucien Wilbanks also appears on the list, but this time as an adversary and lawyer for the Padgitt family, who are suspected of murder.

Harry Rex Vonner also appears in the novel The Judge . Again, he serves as a divorce attorney for the City of Clanton, Mississippi.

Jake Brigance, Lucien Wilbanks, Harry Rex Vonner and Judge Reuben V. Atlee also appear together again in the novel The Heir , which is set about 4 years after the events of The Jury .

Furthermore, Reuben V. Atlee, the namesake of the novel The Judge , is mentioned in the novel.

The case is mentioned in the book "The Chamber" as Clanton's most famous trial.

filming

The book was filmed under the same name The Jury in 1996 with Matthew McConaughey , Sandra Bullock , Samuel L. Jackson , Kevin Spacey , Donald Sutherland, and Kiefer Sutherland . The director of the film was Joel Schumacher .

literature