Blood Money

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"Mr. Swyteck, I’m calling from Judge Matthews’ chambers.”

Jack gripped his smartphone a little tighter. The judge’s assistant was on the line. Jack was on verdict watch at his Coconut Grove law office, eating lunch with his best friend, Theo Knight.

“Is there a verdict?”

“Yes, sir. There is a verdict.”

The words hit him like a 5-iron. This is it.

Criminal Case No. 2010-48-CF, State of Florida v. Sydney Louise Bennett, had spanned twenty-nine court days, plus two weeks of jury selection. Fifty-nine witnesses over eighteen days for the prosecution. Another forty-seven witnesses for the defense. The jury had been drawn from a pool in the Vero Beach area, a hundred miles away from the Miami Justice Building, after three years of intense pretrial publicity. The twelve selected to serve had been sequestered since day one, the week before Memorial Day. Deliberations had started on the Fourth of July, despite the holiday. The jury had been out for ten hours. Six hours longer than the jury in the O. J. Simpson trial-the trial of the other century.

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