PROVEN GUILTY

The wordsNo one judges you as harshly as you do yourselfhave never been uttered by anyone standing before a jury awaiting a verdict. Ryan Middleton had made it something of a cottage industry to catalogue the mistakes that had brought him to this point. There were more than enough to keep him busy, ranging from the inconsequential to the life-altering. He was always brutally honest in those self-appraisals, and yet never failed to conclude that despite his transgressions, he was deserving of a future. Not that his opinion mattered. The only judgment that did was the one about to be rendered by twelve people Ryan had never met and never would meet. The drama had played out in this courtroom over the last eighteen trial days. The court didn't sit on Wednesdays, so Ryan had spent the entirety of April into the first week of May in this room. By now he knew every inch of the space. That the O was just a centimeter off-center from the G and the D. That the windows opened, but the bailiff insisted they stay closed because the judge found the noise from the street traffic below distracting. That the defendant's table had two chairs that didn't match, but the prosecution's was outfitted with three from a single set. 'Will the defendant please rise,' the Honorable Marilyn Wand said. Judge Wand was a well preserved seventy-two years old. According to one profile Ryan read, she ran half-marathons, which stood to reason because Ryan didn't think she weighed a hundred pounds. It was clear that she enjoyed being on high, the pomp that came with her role as master of ceremonies and the power of being the arbiter of right of wrong. Ryan's lawyer's initial assessment was that Judge Wand had been a good pull, but Alex Miller's opinion changed almost the moment Her Honor started issuing rulings. Now the most positive thing Alex would say was that she'd given them grounds for appeal, a sentiment he always followed with the disclaimer –if we need to appeal, which God-willing, we won't. As Ryan heeded the judge's directive, he feared his legs wouldn't support him. Or worse, that he'd vomit all over the defense table. But he made it to his feet and held down the little food in his stomach. Out of reflex, he buttoned the top button on his suit jacket, like he always did upon standing back when he wore suits, even though that was a lifetime ago. Then he turned halfway to the gallery, catching his wife's eyes. She tried to smile, but it was off kilter, like a barbell that was too heavy to lift. Hannah hadn't missed a day of the trial. She dutifully sat directly behind the defense's table, bearing witness to all manner of allegations and innuendo about the man she'd sworn to love for better or for worse. This was worse. No doubt about that. A lot of worse. In fact, if there was anything more ruinous to a marriage than being tried for the murder of your alleged mistress, Ryan couldn't think of it. Samantha Sanders's family and friends sat opposite Hannah, like they were the different sides of a wedding. The victims' family and friends outnumbered Ryan's supporters by at least twenty to one. The one being literal. His wife was Ryan's lone adherent in the gallery. Turning away from the one sympathetic gaze he could count on, Ryan encountered the faces of twelve people of differing races, ages, and occupations sitting in the jury box. Most – but not all – of them were looking back. Ryan clung to the believe that their eye contact was a good omen, theorizing that men and women about to condemn someone for committing a heinous crime would prefer to look away. Then again, maybe the jurors were the type that needed to stare down a man whom they believed committed such an atrocity. Alex Miller had also come to his feet. Ryan appreciated his lawyer's solidarity, although he knew its limits. It reminded him a bit of the joke about how in a bacon and egg breakfast, the pig and the chicken are each very involved, but it's only life or death for one of them. After his arrest, every media-hungry criminal defense lawyer was climbing over one another for a shot at representing the world's most famous accused murderer. Ryan met with three of them to make the most important hiring decision of his life. Two all but assured him of victory if they were retained. Ryan didn't know much about criminal law, but he knew that kind of confidence was misplaced. Alex, on the other hand, said merely that Ryan had a triable case. Not good or bad, winnable or hopeless, buttriable. 'Sometimes, you know from jump street that there's no way you're going to get an acquittal,' Alex said in their initial meeting. 'In those cases, you're just begging for some type of plea deal. Of course, the prosecution knows that it's a slam dunk conviction, so they don't have much incentive to offer anything. On the other end of the spectrum are those cases in which the prosecutors fear an acquittal, so they offer a sweetheart deal, such that guilt or innocence no longer matter. I mean, unless you're a bigtime gambler, you leap at the chance to serve one year if the downside risk is ten times that long. And believe me, once you're put on trial, the possibility of losing is never remote, no matter how strong the defense. Lots of jurors, maybe most of them, believe the defendant wouldn't be on trial if he wasn't guilty. Last, and most rare, are the cases like yours. The ones in which the prosecution's evidence is weak, or you have a plausible defense, but the outcome is still far from certain. Those I calltriable. The prosecutor will offer you a something that will be better than what the judge will hit you with if you're convicted, but it will still be more than long enough for you to feel like you're not going to see the other end.' That turned out to be exactly what happened. Shortly before the jury was empaneled, the DA presented what it called its best and final plea offer. There was nothing best about it, at least as far as Ryan was concerned. Manslaughter in the second degree. A C-class felony. The statutory sentencing range was 3.5 to 15 years, with a prosecution recommendation of ten. 'If you turn it down,' Alex said, 'and the jury comes back guilty, it's a 15-to-25-year statutory range. Judge Wand probably splits the difference, giving you twenty. But I can't say that the possibility she hits you with 25 is out of the question.' Ryan would have liked to say that he rejected the deal out of hand, but nothing could have been further from the truth. He'd obsessed over it. Counting how many days made up ten years. And fifteen. And sixteen and seventeen and so on until he'd gotten to the 9,131 days that comprised the maximum sentence he could face. He considered how old he'd be upon his release under each of those different scenarios. Whether he could ask Hannah to wait. Whether she would if he did. But above all else, Ryan wondered if his infant son would ever accept that his father had confessed to murder (even if it was technically manslaughter) – and willingly absented himself for the first decade of his life – to ensure he would be there for the later years. Or would Lucas – and everyone else – always believe that the only reason Ryan had pleaded guilty was because he was guilty. Ryan had never been a gambler. Yet he'd elected to roll the dice when it came to his freedom. That decision was not out of any confidence in victory. About that he couldn't have been more uncertain. Rather, he simply couldn't see much of a difference between serving ten or twenty-five years in prison. Either way, his life was over. 'Will the jury's foreperson please read the verdict,' Judge Wand said. Among the other acrania about the law about which Ryan was now fluent was that juror number one was usually selected the foreperson. 'It's a thankless task,' Alex had explained at the start of the trial. 'It's not like you get any real power or more perks than any other juror. Whoever takes the job has to read the verdict in open court, and fear of public speaking being what it is, most jurors would sooner not do it.' But then the lawyer added, 'In a high-profile case it's a little different. A badge of honor, I guess. It may also get you the best book deal.' Ryan's case was certainly high-profile. Podcasters, true crime television shows, blogs and old-fashioned newspapers had devoted countless words to the story of the Ivy League corporate lawyer on trial for the brutal strangulation of his beautiful mistress. On top of that, Ryan had even received a few offers for his life story, each dangling some A-lister interested in playing him in the movie. Sometimes, during the tedium of the trial – when experts were droning on about the science that supposedly supported their findings, or a fact witness was saying the same thing for the twelfth time -- Ryan would imagine who might be cast to play them in the movie version of this saga. His first impression was that the jury foreman looked like a much taller Kevin Hart. 'In the matter of the People versus Christopher Ryan Middleton …' the jury foreman began, reading from a single slip of paper he held with both hands. Not too long ago, Ryan thought he'd been born under a lucky star. He'd always been a straight-A student, first in high school, then at Yale, and then at Harvard Law School. All of which led him to a job at the most profitable law firm on earth, the veritable Lennox Allwood & Winters, where he'd caught the eye of the firm's biggest rainmaker and seemed a sure bet to make partner. His blessings were even greater outside of the office. His beautiful wife and perfect son greeted him every day when he came home. And then, as if he'd flown too close the sun, Ryan came crashing down to earth. Not just once, but half a dozen times. With each descent, Ryan thought he'd hit rock bottom, but there always turned out to be lower for him to fall. As he now awaited judgment, he felt as if he stood atop a trap door. If the jury foreman uttered only the wordguilty, there would be no end to the depths Ryan would plummet. 'Case No. 23:5572, for the New York State Supreme Court, Criminal Division, County of New York . . .' the foreman continued. Criminal courtrooms, like foxholes, are devoid of atheists. More prayers were likely uttered in this room than at the Vatican. Ryan had long been a non-believer in matters of faith, but he nonetheless offered a silent intercession that his nightmare would end. There had been many such pleas in the past year. Every single one had gone unanswered. As he once again begged the Almighty for deliverance, Ryan realized he was too late. The verdict was already in. Even God couldn't change that now. 'On the sole count of the indictment, murder in the second degree . . .' Once upon a time, Ryan joked that he was the kind of lawyer who had never set foot inside a courtroom. That was a bit of literary license because he had appeared at the First Department's ceremonial courthouse to take the oath to be admitted as a member of the bar of the State of New York. But the point remained. Not long ago, Ryan knew nothing about trial practice. He didn't even watch courtroom dramas on TV. For the past year, however, Ryan had lived criminal law his every waking moment. Now information that he'd never needed and never wanted was forever etched into his brain. How openings were referred to asstatements, whereas closings werearguments. Why a defendant's off-the-stand statements were admissible, but anyone else's unsworn utterances were hearsay. That peremptory challenges could be used to strike a prospective juror for any reason, but not because he or she was a member of a particular race. Another thing Ryan had learned in the last year that he hadn't in law school: New York reserved murder in the first degree to the killing of police officers and a small class of other public servants. The premeditated killing of your spouse or your brother or anybody else for that matter, including your mistress, so long as it was done with premeditation, was charged as murder in the second degree. 'We, the jury, unanimously find Christopher Ryan Middleton . . .' First among all the other side of the looking glass experiences was that in this realm even his name was different. He'd never been called Christopher. Since birth, he'd answered only to Ryan. Nonetheless, in the criminal proceeding brought against him by the People of the State of New York for the murder of Samantha Sanders, he was identified in the caption as Christopher Ryan Middleton. As a result, in every article or TV show about his case he was called a name he didn't recognize as his own. Ryan couldn't deny that it represented a poignant bit of symbolism. Acquittal would not only win him his freedom, but also restore his identity. On the other hand, conviction would result in his banishment to a place the devil himself would find intolerable, where he'd be reduced to an inmate number. Ryan offered yet another prayer to a God in which he didn't believe as he waited to find out which of those two fates awaited.Please, he silently screamed.Please make tall Kevin Hart say the wordNot. The jury foreman's eyes returned to the paper, as if he needed to refresh his recollection regarding the verdict he was about to deliver. Once that had been accomplished, he looked directly at Ryan. As their eyes met, Ryan felt a glimmer of hope. So much so that a small smile crept on to his lips. The foreman's eyes returned back to his page. Then he read a single word.