1. “Nothing rivaled the thrill of a big time litigation.” (Grisham 23)

This is one of my favorite phrases because at this point in the book, it is not very thrilling, so it foreshadows the events to come.

2. “Every jury has a leader, and that’s where you find your verdict.” (65)

I chose this because it is basically the main idea of the entire book, in the way that one juror controls the others.

3. “‘Know thine enemy,’ he said aloud to the walls. The first rule of warfare.” (293)

This is one of my favorite quotes because it is ironic. Fitch believes he knows who the enemy is, but in reality he has it all backwards.

4. “His voice and stare were almost hypnotic, but honest. You wanted to believe this man.” (71)

I chose this quote about Cable, the defense lawyer, because it is funny in the way that even though the jury felt compelled to find for the defense, they still found for the plaintiff.

5. “After spending fortunes on the selection, the opinions came cheap.” (64)

This is one of my favorite phrases because I find it funny in the sense that after all the money that was spent on analyzers of the jury, others’ opinions were now abundant.

6. “If a witness is unshakable, then beat him up with insignificant details.” (244)

I chose this because it portrays a rather funny picture and yet is a good method.

7. “Oh, the questions he wanted to ask.” (354)

This is one of my favorite quotes because no matter how many questions Fitch asked, they would always be wrong ones at this point in the book.

8. “He would not play a guessing game with someone who had the hard facts.” (355)

I chose this because Fitch basically was playing a guessing game with Marlee in the way that he never knew for sure that she would deliver, he just gambled that she would.

9. “Surely Fitch had worked his wizardry on ten of them.” (481)

This is one of my favorite phrases because the lawyers thinking this thought Fitch actually had control over the jury, which was incorrect.

10. “‘This is a complicated, very important case, and it would be wrong to rush things without thoughtful deliberation.'” (504)

I chose this because it is ironic that Easter is saying this while he has already made up his mind on who should receive the verdict.

In the book The Runaway Jury by John Grisham, Gabrielle Brant aka Marlee and her boyfriend Jeff Kerr aka Nicholas Easter devise a plan to avenge her parents’ deaths. First, Gabrielle sends Kerr to Biloxi, Mississippi where he registers to vote and recieves jury summons. He quickly makes his way to the top of the jury list, and thanks to Gabrielle, none of the jury consultants Fitch, the defense consultant, hired know anything about him other than what he chooses to divulge, whether it be a lie or not. Soon, they have twelve members on the jury and elect Mr. Herman Grimes as the foreman even though he is blind. Kerr tells the jury of his going to law school and thereby impressing them and gaining legal credibility. He tells them of all the types of tactics the defense and prosecution use, and they believe him because of his law background. Afterwards, it rather spirals out of control as Kerr becomes the leader and face of the jury whilst guiding the jury in a series of outbreaks, some of which include food being brought in on time, saying the pledge before the trial each morning, and not going through their things before sequestration began. While Kerr leads the jury, Gabrielle controls the behind-the-scenes area. She tells Fitch what some members of the jury might wear or bring the next day in order to establish credibility in the beginning with him.

     Before the sequestration, one of the jurors, Stella Hulic, is removed because she believes she was being followed while on a trip with her husband over the weekend, and turns into a mess that cannot be cleaned up other than just removing from the jury. Also, around this time Fitch finds blackmail on a few jurors that is quite surprising, such as an bortion Rikki Coleman had in college her husband does not know about. During sequestration, Kerr continues to lead the jury in making decisions and everyone now knows that the verdict belongs to him. Several people from Fitch’s side try to persuade some of the jurors to vote in their favor through orientation or blackmail or family. Then, Gabrielle starts to allude to Fitch being able to buy the verdict, which he is very interested in. He thinks that if he was able to buy the verdict, he would not have to use some of the blackmail tapes he collected on the jurors in order to assure a defense win.  

     In the end, Gabrielle convinces Fitch to give her ten million dollars to “buy” the verdict after Kerr became jury foreman because he and Gabrielle spiked Herman Grimes’ coffee, causing him to become ill. After giving her the money, Fitch finds out that her parents died from smoking, and not only was he going to lose the trial but he also lost the ten million dollars. The jury finds two million dollars for compensatory damages and four hundred million dollars for punitive damages for the plaintiff, and leaves the defense baffled and horrified. While this was happing, Gabrielle put the ten million dollars into a stock and earned more money off the ten million dollars then sold the stock and pocketed the money she earned. She then returned the ten million dollars to Fitch, keeping her earnings, and said she will be keeping an eye on him from then on. The end of the book left the defense open and exposed for more trials with possible losses all because of the scheme Gabrielle and Kurr put into action.

1. One truth about human nature that occurs in the story The Runaway Jury is that most people are selfish. No matter how much one might care about another, they will always look out for their own best interests at heart. 

       The event in the story that goes along with the truth that most people  are selfish is when Marlee brings Nicholas Easter into her own scheme  for revenge to her own advantage. She uses his feelings for her to help get retribution for her parents, which is selfish and manipulative because she does not even consider how it will affect him.

2. Another truth about human nature is that sometimes the line between right and wrong is a little blurry if we have a higher goal in mind.                                                                                                                                                           

     The event in the story that coordinates with this truth is when Marlee and Easter poison Herman Grimes. They do this so that Easter can be jury foreman and eventually achieve the higher goal of  retribution for Marlee’s parents, but it doe not excuse the wrong act they committed.

3. The third truth about human nature is that we always seek justice and have an innate sense of need for it. Just because we seek justice, though, does not always mean we go about looking for it in a right way, some people seek justice in an illegal way. For example if someone murders someone another person was close to, that person might kill the murderer in retribution.                                                         

      The event in the story that agrees with this truth of desiring justice is when Marlee admits to Fitch everything. She created this scheme in order to obtain justice for her deceased parents, but went about it in an usual and incorrect way since the FBI was involved and it broke a few laws. She would have done anything to obtain justice and retribution for her parents, even if it was illegal.

In the book The Runaway Jury by John Grisham, a major change occurs in the main character Nicholas Easter. This change occurs when Easter and Marlee actually poison the jury foreman, Herman Grimes, in order for Easter to then become the foreman. When this happens, it is a definite change from his earlier harmless self because he took the step from being harmless to purposefully harming someone in order to achieve his own goals. Earlier in the story, Easter only tricked and plotted, all the while causing no physical harm to anyone until he poisoned Herman Grimes, taking his threat level to a higher degree. This act he committed he had no regret for, causing him to become dangerous because he coldly poisoned someone who was in his way. This is the change that occurred in the main character Nicholas Easter in the book The Runaway Jury.

The book The Runaway Jury by John Grisham I would recommend to those who enjoy civil court cases. Honestly, I did not really care for it because civil court cases bore me if they do not have any exciting twists or shocking revelations. To me, this book did not have any exciting or shocking twists; I could predict just about anything that was going to happen. This is either because I read too many thrillers or it was just a little dull and a lot ordinary. Still, for people that enjoy civil court cases, I would recommend this because that is exactly what this is, a trial on paper. If I were to have written this book, I would have changed several things. There would be at least three shocking twists in the plot and someone would be put in great peril. also, there would be less coverage of the trial, and it would be more oriented on the jurors’ viewpoints. Also, instead of having the trial basically just copied onto paper, it would be seen through each of the jurors’ eyes with their commentary on what is happening because the public does not normally know each of the juror’s thoughts and opinions on the trial and it would be interesting to find out. Another thing I would change, is that instead of having the majority of the book centered around the trial, I would center it around each one of the jury’s personal lives in order to get better insight as to why they would vote for the verdict they did, and it would make it easier to have surprising revelations if it was more focused on the personal and not the public. These are a few things I would change about The Runaway Jury, if I had written it. Although, for those who enjoy civil court trials, I would recommend this testing trial of my patience.

In The Runaway Jury by John Grisham, there is both honesty and deceit present throughout the novel. One example of this is when the character Nicholas Easter talks and interacts with the other jurors. He is honest with them when he talks about the defense’s and plaintiff’s tactics, but lies to them concerning his personal life. Another example is the character Marlee/Gabrielle’s actions. She deceives Fitch in the way that she makes him believe that if he pays her, she will control the verdict in his favor, but she is really in favor of a plaintiff victory because of what happened to her parents. She is honest in the way that the jury descriptions she tells Fitch actually happen. A third example of this is when Marlee/Gabrielle takes the ten million dollars Fitch gives her to buy the verdict, making him believe that not only will he not get the money back, but also that he has the verdict in the bag, which is deceptive. Although, she is honest when she brings back the ten million dollars to Fitch and tells him the truth regarding the scheme surrounding the verdict. Another example is how the jury analysts try to perceive the honest truth from the jurors because they try to deceive everyone by looking completely neutral to either side of the battling lawyers. A final example is when the jurors with strong opinions hide them in order to be on the jury, deceiving the judge and lawyers. They are honest, though, when they tell Easter their true opinions during the trial. These are examples of honesty and deceit coinciding within The Runaway Jury.

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham is set in Biloxi, Mississippi in the twentieth century. It is described as the backwoods of Mississippi, but has casinos which brought in much of the population. The courtroom and the motel the jurors stay in during sequestration are located in Biloxi and two of the main places the story occurs. While the setting is realistic, the genre is fiction. This book is fictional in the way that a real jury would not act in the way that this jury does. Even though the jury acts unrealistically, this story could happen today minus the jury’s behavior. There have been and could be tobacco trials, even in Mississippi. There are and could be aggressive lawyers fighting in the courtroom in a tobacco trial. Also, the tobacco companies could put up a fund for trials that has millions of dollars in it. Finally, a jury could be sequestered in a real life trial, possibly even about tobacco. Over all, even though this book is fictional, it has realistic elements that make it so that similar trials might occur today.

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham is a book where a tobacco trial is taking place, and the main character, Nicholas Easter, is a juror. Easter is the leader of the jurors in the way that he influences their thinking and acting while technically not the real foreman. The title of this book is representative of the jury because their leader guides them on a rampage no one can predict. This is a “runaway jury” because if no one can predict what they will do next, then people will bend to their every whim and need so that the authority figures still believe they are in control. They still believe they are in control because they think that if they support the jury, then it gives the appearance of  them “authorizing” their actions. The jury runs away with its every whim led by Easter, who is truly the only controller of the jury. This jury in the book is truly a unique one because no other jury has made demands like this jury has made. Led by Easter, they make ridiculous demands that confuses the judge in the way that no other jury has ever demanded things so frivolous that seem important to the jurors. They dominate the spotlight by instead of focusing on an important trial, the book and all the characters in it focus on the intents and actions of the jury. The Runaway Jury is a book where, not only is the title significant, but most of the thoughts and actions of the characters revolve around the jury itself and not the actual trial.

In the book The Runaway Jury by John Grisham, a man named Fitch basically runs the defense team. The entire defense team listens to him and obeys him, but why? The author portrays Fitch as a ruthless tyrant, but he achieves his goals with consistency. “Fitch had directed eight trials without a loss,” (Grisham 15) represents the theme that in order to succeed in life, one must be aggressive in the way one goes about achieving goals. This quote also represents Fitch’s consistency in obtaining his goals. This book is filled with examples of where people obtain their desires by being aggressive in the way that they go about getting them, or doing whatever they feel is necessary in order to achieve their goals. Another example of this theme is where the book describes “The Fund,” the financing for the defense team. It describes “The Fund” as having millions of dollars just to be spent on trials for the tobacco companies alone. This could easily be another reason as to why the defense team keeps winning their trials because they are aggressive in the way they prepare and doing what they feel is necessary to stay on top of the pyramid. Another example of their aggressive preparation is when it shows all the jury consultants the defense team has and what they are all willing to do. The defense team is successful because they are aggressive in the way they prepare and the way they act in the courtroom. They do what they feel they have to in order to succeed in the trial and life. This all returns to the theme of being aggressive and doing what one feels they must in order to succeed in life.

Nicholas Easter is the main character in The Runaway Jury by John Grisham. The reader does not know what his real name is or what his true intentions are. All the reader knows is that he is in control of the verdict/jury. One thing I do not like about him is that he is deceptive and powerful because of his tricky quality. He is in a god-like scenario in which he is in constant control of everybody and everything, and everyone is just a pawn in his game. He has the ability to utterly control the people around him because of his deceit. This gives him more power than any person should ever have; which makes his deceitfulness a characteristic he should not possess because of the power it presents to him. However, one characteristic I do like about him is that he knows exactly what he wants, even if the reader is not exactly aware of his intentions. Even though he goes about achieving his goal in an unconventional way, he goes after what he wants without hesitation. This is admirable because most people do not know what they want, or if they do, very few might actually try to achieve it with such zeal as how Easter attacks his ambitions. Everyone wishes for something, whether it be something minor or something major, and only a few people grasp their desires. The character Easter is able to do this because of his nature and his unorthodox ways. These are two things I do and do not like about the main character in The Runaway Jury, Nicholas Easter.