Test your investigative skills. Clue: Focus on the Jurors (South Miami, Florida; 2011 & 2001): Ready for jury duty from the comfort of your home? Ready to see how scrupulous you are as a reader? Ready to “play the game”?
Seeking justice is not a game of course. It’s a man’s life we’re talking about. In this case Gabriel Soto’s, accused of raping and murdering Melina Mora two years before the trial is about to begin. But as Robin Peguero, former homicide prosecutor in Miami shows us – strategically, methodically, brilliantly – a game is afoot inside and outside the courtroom. This supposed hall of justice is situated in the highly diverse multiethnic, multicultural community of South Miami. We know the criminal justice system is broken when it comes to people of color, but maybe not as pervasive and bungling.
Dear Reader: you’re part of the game. You don’t realize you’re being played until you reach the if-you-can-figure-out-the-ending. Assume nothing. Pay close attention. Take notes if you have to, as this literary game is awfully clever, distracting, and deceptive. “Deception is entirely constitutional.” Riveting too, so you’ll want to compare your verdict with the jury’s.
Peguero is laser-focused on racial and ethnic prejudices and biases woven into the backstories of jurors, defendant, victim, witnesses, lawyers, detectives, and law enforcement officers. You’ll be assessing the credibility of everyone, including counsel defending their clients: Sandy Grunwald, arguing for the State of Florida and victim Melina Mora; Johnny Whipple, public defender, going to bat for Gabriela Soto to save him from a miserable fate. Mora and Soto are both Latinos. She from Columbia, he Cuban.
A crash course of how hard it would be to be one of the jurors on a murder trial. The key witness initially identified Soto as a black man she saw arguing with a beautiful young woman outside a bar at night. Later, she changes her testimony to a lighter skinned Cuban man. Mistaken identity? Bad memory? Prejudice?
Expect characters to be tainted by conflicts-of-interests the reader concludes or perceives, to include Sandy’s Lead Detective; the Chief Medical Examiner; influence of big money and ambitions; and the reporter inside the court Dominico Santos, who cares about the “fourth estate” but cares more about Sandy, his girlfriend. She acutely aware of conveying the proper female image, drummed into her head by her father the Honorable Jack Grunwald.
Write What You Know. A literary mantra and compelling reason With Prejudice is an extremely well-conceived, hard-hitting thriller. Peguero’s credentials displayed in his razor-sharp prose make him the only person whose credibility we don’t question. Like Sandy, he’s had seven years of experience prosecuting murder cases, so he’s turned from “storytelling to jurors” to storytelling about jurors. He’s also been the speechwriter for presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar, wrote for the Harvard Law Review, and the Miami Herald. Currently, he serves as a legal advisor to Congress on domestic terrorism. At the heart of it all, is his father’s experience as a victim of racial profiling. “I’m angry,” he writes. “I am angry at a system – and maybe at myself – for thinking that in dressing myself up in Harvard-degrees, in sweaters and collared shirts, in affectations of the powerful, that I have rendered myself un-arrestable.”
This stellar crime novel allows for a healthy and pointed way for the author to funnel his indignation at systemic racism in the legal system and society as a whole. It’s impossible not to be moved by what you’ll read when you get an insider’s stinging view of one case. Fictional, yet inspired by realities.
“You don’t pick a jury. You’re left with a jury,” Sandy tells her intern. So by the time “voir dire” – a legal term for jury selection that’s as much art and psychology as anything else – is completed, you’re left with a “race to the bottom” selecting jurors who aren’t “too informed.”
“Doublespeak” is cited, applying even to the title. With prejudice is also a legal term that means a judge can make a decision that’s binding, versus a decision without prejudice that can be changed. You’ll learn other legal terms not defined but inferred such as the Babson Challenge, Rape Shield Rule, Richardson violation, Section 1983.
You’ll also get a primer on the most respectful way to characterize someone of Latin ethnicity. For instance, the victim is first described as Hispanic, while later more appropriately as Columbian. Referring to someone by their country of origin shows greater respect for a person’s identity, if we have to label people at all. She could also be described as Latina. The author makes the point that Hispanic refers to someone from the US, Latino to someone from a Latin American country. The two are typically used interchangeably.
Again, Peguero’s personal story makes him a credible source. Apparently, when he was younger he identified himself as “Black and Hispanic;” today he calls himself “Afro-Latino” of Dominican and Ecuadorian heritage. The specificity also implies that not all people from the Dominican Republic are black, nor prefer to be called black. The message is: be conscious of stereotyping people, which unconsciously reveals our own prejudice, lack of understanding, or consideration.
The uphill battle of proving sexual assault in a rape case is a key factor in the jury’s decision. It doesn’t help that Melina was head-turning attractive and a free-spirit with men, so the case is ready-made for assuming consensual sex. Until the first unexpected game-changing twist on the evening before the trial starts, bombshell evidence indicating Soto is gay. So he couldn’t possibly have committed the crime, his counsel argues. Could he be bisexual? Is narrow-mindedness a form of prejudice?
Unlike Peguero, Sandy is white. A liberal Democrat versus her Republican counterpart Whittle. Which is why on page six Sandy also tells her intern: “Honestly, I could tell you the verdict from the moment the six of them are selected . . . I’d only need to ask one question: Who did you vote for in the last election?”
Catch something that throws you off? Not the politics, but the number 6? Why only six jurors, with an alternate, when most juries require twelve? Googling, you’ll learn Florida is one of very few states where you only need half the model. Representative/diverse enough?
Gender matters too. Sandy prefers male jurors. The older, the more conservative, the better. Men without hearts not women who are too soft. Her goal: win. “Nothing is more important to her than her ambition.”
The evidence is limited: two strands of the victim’s hair; the creepy claim of a body when only some bones were found; and another witness who commented on Soto’s isolated, bare-bone conditions living on the same out-of-the-way farm, noticing a light and hearing screaming inside the tiny quarters of a loner. Is it a crime to live “off the grid”? Couple that with law enforcement conducting a shabby investigation based on assumptions and you’re off with planting the seeds of doubt that should influence a jury’s decision.
“The power of relatability” also matters. Who do you think the jury will believe? Ironically, the passionate male public defender or the cool “restraint” of the prosecutor?
To simulate how hard it is to be on a jury with a lot to pay attention to and weed out, the novel is loaded with backstories that transition abruptly, throwing the reader off kilter. Intentionally. An effective technique that may cause you to miss the clues that will affect your verdict.
Lorraine