Sycamore Row - John Grisham

33
Instead, Jake uttered not a single word that could have been considered even remotely
disrespectful. They gathered on the porch on a windy but warm March afternoon and
spent the first half hour talking about Judge Atlee’s two sons. Ray was a law professor
at the University of Virginia and had managed to live a peaceful, productive life, so far.
Forrest, the younger, had not. Both had been shipped back east for boarding school, and
thus were not well known in Clanton. Forrest was battling addictions and this weighed
heavy on his father, who knocked back two whiskey sours in the first twenty minutes.
Jake paced himself. When the timing was right, he said, “I think our jury pool is
contaminated, Judge. The Lang name is toxic around here and I don’t think Lettie can
get a fair trial.”
“That convict should’ve had his license yanked anyway, Jake. I hear you and Ozzie
were stalling his DUI. I don’t like that at all.”
Jake felt stung and took a deep breath. As a Chancellor, Reuben Atlee had absolutely
no jurisdiction over drunk driving cases in the county, though, as always, he assumed
they were his business.
Jake said, “That’s not true, Judge, but even if Simeon Lang had no license he would’ve
been driving anyway. A valid license is not important to those people. Ozzie set up a
roadblock three months ago on a Friday night. Sixty percent of the blacks had no
driver’s license and 40 percent of the whites.”
“I fail to see the relevance,” Judge Atlee replied, and Jake was not about to enlighten
him. “He was caught driving drunk in October. If his case had been processed in an
orderly manner through the courts, he would not have had a driver’s license. There’s a
reasonable chance to believe he would not have been driving on Tuesday night of last
week.”
“I’m not his lawyer, Judge. Not now, not then.”
Both rattled their ice cubes and let the moment pass. Judge Atlee took a sip and said,
“File your motion to change venue if you wish. I can’t stop you.”
“I’d like for the motion to be taken seriously. I get the impression you made up your
mind some time ago. Things have changed.”
“I take everything seriously. We’ll learn a lot when we start picking a jury. If it
appears as though folks know too much about the case, then I’ll call time-out and we’ll
deal with it. I thought I had explained this already.”
“You have, yes sir.”
“What happened to our pal Stillman Rush? He sent over a fax Monday and informed