Thomas Plunkett, The Daily Record Newswire
A good number of law students I meet or mentor tell me they desire to be a trial lawyer. The conversation quickly moves to a question about what they should do to prepare themselves.
The answer is simple. Read the "Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald. If you have not read it since high school, you likely missed its point. The book will tell you what you need to know about picking a jury in a criminal case because it is a study in people, how they approach life, how they perceive life's problems and how they will respond to certain information, such as evidence, in a case.
Jury selection can be the crux of any trial. Roughly two years ago I tried a case in Knoxville, Iowa. Knoxville is of course the home of the Sprint Car Capital of the World and Dixie Cornell Gebhardt - the designer of the Iowa flag. After the jury was selected the prosecuting attorney, a gentleman in every way, turned to me and announced that he believed all cases were either won or lost in jury selection. I asked if that meant he was going to rest his case now and forgo the evidence. The State declined my invitation.
Fitzgerald sets the table for his entire book in the first chapter. Arguably he introduces himself as Nick Carraway, the story teller. Through Carraway we begin to understand the characters, what they do, where they have been, who they are, how they think, what they desire and what they dread. Since we understand them, we know whether they can be trusted as a juror. We know that Carraway is troubled by his own contradictions in life versus his personal perspectives. He would like to believe he is tolerant of other and not quick to judge. He comes from the Midwest with Midwestern values, but he is at the same time puzzled with how that checks with his many privileges.
When we meet Tom Buchanan he is not just a Cronie from Carraway's social club at Yale. He is, a physical figure dressed in riding clothes, he is self-focused. Fitzgerald artfully tells us he is a small minded racist through Buchanan's attempt to promote a book called "The Rise of the Colored Empires," by Goddard. The book, we are told, promotes racist, white-supremacist attitudes and Buchanan finds that book convincing. Asking a juror what they are reading these days tells you what agrees with them. The question, "Are you a racist who espouses white-supremacist ideas?" is not the way to approach that issue in voir dire.
Fitzgerald outlines Carraway's cousin Daisy, the wife of Tom, by sharing her hopes for her baby daughter. We learn she hopes her baby daughter will turn out to be a fool, because women live best as beautiful fools. She can be sarcastic, maybe even sardonic, but these outward manifestations are a superficial masking of the pain caused by her husband's scantily clad dalliances. On a jury this person may be attuned to human interaction, able to understand dark facts without shutting their eyes in fear, and won't be caught up in the emotional telling of story.
Jordan Baker, Carraway's likely romantic interest, symbolizes the era's decadence and entitlement with her athletic beauty tilted against her outward boredom and dishonesty. She is a professional athlete that cheats. She is not only disinterested, she has something better to do. This juror is going to blame someone (likely your client) for being forced into servitude by the jury notice she received.
Enter the defendant. Fitzgerald's introduction of Gatsby is haunting. He is a handsome fellow standing on the lawn, arms stretched out toward the dark water in a curious way at a distant light across the bay in East Egg. Carraway looks out at the water, but all he can see is a distant green light and when he looks once more for Gatsby he has vanished. Gatsby is humanized before we even meet the fellow. Although Gatsby's life is the essence of excesses during the "Jazz Age," Carraway's insights show he is good on a core level. Fitzgerald later tells us how each character and the general public perceives the character. Fitzgerald's examination of Gatsby brings you into the minds of people we don't know, but have met in our experiences as trial lawyers. If you want to be someone who can appreciate the subtle aspects of people and their tendencies for judgments, Fitzgerald's insights take you down that road.
In Chapter 1, Fitzgerald's perceptions and attitudes regarding the events and characters in the "The Great Gatsby," are central to understanding just who we are dealing with in the rest of the book. We read Gatsby because it is a classic, but it is a classic because it lends to us a means to understand what goes on around us. Trial lawyers, and in particular criminal trial lawyers, have to develop the same keen insights into people and events. It is the indispensable factor that brings vitality to our work. "The Great Gatsby," is a primer in the practice of trial law because it tells us why people behave the way they do.
Trial work is a study in human nature and the human condition. Lawyers have a duty to advocate, but with that duty comes the privilege of front-row seats to the interesting interactions people have with one another. What other lawyer sits across the table from a fellow and asks, "What were you thinking when you swung that ax?" Then next examines the facts to bring a general understanding to a jury about how this act can fit into our moral fabric. The work is voyeuristic in the same way a great novel is a portal into another place and another time with fascinating events. Criminal lawyers look into the lives of others and that is why Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is so important for criminal lawyers picking a jury. It lets us look into the Jazz Age. The 1920s were full of reckless frivolity, a recklessness that came on the heels of the First World War, Prohibition, and intermingled organized crime. We are at once drawn to the lifestyle, yet pushed back by the immorality that accompanied it. Understanding life is the heart of what makes practicing criminal law interesting and the heart of why we should reread Gatsby if you are going to do this work.
I told my office partner Charlie Clippert that I would be advocating preventing children from reading "The Great Gatsby" in high school. His response, "Maybe tell them to burn 'Catcher in the Rye' too?" The point is that truths can only be recognized when we have observed life sufficiently enough to see the irony and the tragedy outlined throughout "The Great Gatsby." The book is wasted on a high schooler, but is the soil that grows the tree of a criminal trial lawyer.
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Thomas Plunkett is a St. Paul criminal defense lawyer.
Published: Fri, Sep 26, 2014
