A time to kill

"If you lose," Harry Rex said, "run like hell, because those niggers will storm the courthouse."

"I feel weak," Jake admitted.

Agee took the platform on the front steps and announced the jury was ready. He asked for quiet, and instantly the mob grew still. They moved toward the front columns. Agee asked them to fall to their knees and pray. They knelt obediently and prayed earnestly. Every man, woman, and child on the front lawn bowed before God and begged him to let their man go.

The soldiers stood bunched together and also prayed for an acquittal.

Ozzie and Moss Junior seated the courtroom and lined deputies and reserves around the walls and down the aisle. Jake entered from the holding room and stared at Carl Lee at the defense table. He glanced at the spectators. Many were praying. Many were biting their fingers. Gwen was wiping tears. Lester looked fearfully at Jake. The children were confused and scared.

Noose assumed the bench and an electrified silence engulfed the courtroom. There was no sound from the outside. Twenty thousand blacks knelt on the ground like Muslims. Perfect stillness inside the courtroom and out.

"I have been advised that the jury has reached a verdict, is that correct, Mr. Bailiff? Very well. We will soon seat the jury, but before we do so I have some instructions. I will not tolerate any outbursts or displays of emotion. I will direct the sheriff to remove any person who creates a disturbance. If need be, I will clear the courtroom. Mr. Bailiff, will you seat the jury."

The door opened, and it seemed like an hour before Eula Dell Yates appeared first with tears in her eyes. Jake dropped his head. Carl Lee stared gamely at the portrait of Robert E. Lee above Noose. They awkwardly filled the jury

box. They seemed jittery, tense, scared. Most had been crying. Jake felt sick. Barry Acker held a piece of paper that attracted the attention of everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?"

"Yes, sir, we have," answered the foreman in a high-pitched, nervous voice.

"Hand it to the clerk, please."

Jean Gillespie took it and handed it to His Honor, who studied it forever. "It is technically in order," he finally said.

Eula Dell was flooding, and her sniffles were the only sounds in the courtroom. Jo Ann Gates and Bernice Toole padded their eyes with handkerchiefs. The crying could mean only one thing. Jake had vowed to ignore the jury before the verdict was read, but it was impossible. In his first criminal trial, the jurors had smiled as they took their seats. At that moment, Jake had become confident of an acquittal. Seconds later he learned that the smiles were because a criminal was about to be removed from the streets. Since that trial, he had vowed never to look at the jurors. But he always did. It would be nice to see a wink or a thumbs up, but that never happened.

Noose looked at Carl Lee. "Will the defendant please rise."

Jake knew there were probably more terrifying requests known to the English tongue, but to a criminal lawyer that request at that particular moment had horrible implications. His client stood awkwardly, pitifully. Jake closed his eyes and held his breath. His hands shook and his stomach ached.

Noose handed the verdict back to Jean Gillespie. "Please read it, Madam Clerk."

She unfolded it and faced the defendant. "As to each count of the indictment, we the jury find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity."

Carl Lee turned and bolted for the railing. Tonya and the boys sprang from the front pew and grabbed him. The courtroom exploded in pandemonium. Gwen screamed and burst into tears. She buried her head in Lester's arms. The reverends stood, looked upward, and shouted "Hallelujah!" and "Praise Jesus!" and "Lord! Lord! Lord!"

Noose's admonition meant nothing. He rapped the gavel half-heartedly and said, "Order, order, order in the

seemed content to allow a little celebration.

Jake was numb, lifeless, paralyzed. His only movement was a weak smile in the direction of the jury box. His eyes watered and his lip quivered, and he decided not to make a spectacle of himself. He nodded at Jean Gillespie, who was crying, and just sat at the defense table nodding and trying to smile, unable to do anything else. From the corner of his eye he could see Musgrove and Buckley removing files, legal pads, and important-looking papers, and throwing it all into their briefcases. Be gracious, he told himself.

A teenager darted between two deputies, through the door, and ran through the rotunda screaming "Not guilty! Not guilty!" He ran to a small balcony over the front _steps and screamed to the masses below "Not guilty! Not guilty!" Bedlam erupted.

"Order, order in the court," Noose was saying when the delayed reaction from the outside came thundering through the windows.