Chapter 35 Summary

At her father's Wilmington beach house, Carla reads the news of the all-white jury in the newspaper. Meanwhile, the jurors she reads about are sequestered under guard at the Temple Inn, otherwise abandoned. It is forty-eight miles from Clanton. The two alternate jurors, one black male and one white female, have separate rooms. All the rest are rooming in same-sex pairs. They are cut off from the media. On the bus to the courthouse, they avoid any discussion of the case, but they have been discussing it in their rooms. In court at 9:00, Judge Noose asks whether anyone has tried to influence them or whether they have discussed the case. They are to notify him if anyone attempts to engage them in that way.

Buckley begins with his opening statement, predictably flowery and endearing. He openly discusses the rape of Tonya Hailey, pleasantly...