Presumed innocent

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This is how I always start:

"I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt."

"This man-" And here I point.

You must always point, Rusty, I was told by John White. That was the day I started in the office. The sheriff took my fingerprints, the chief judge swore me in, and John White brought me up to watch the first jury trial I'd ever seen. Ned Halsey was making the opening statement for the state, and as he gestured across the courtroom, John, in his generous, avuncular way, with the humid scent of alcohol on his breath at ten in the morning, whispered my initial lesson. He was the chief deputy P.A. then, a hale Irishman with white hair wild as cornsilk. It was almost a dozen years ago, long before I had formed even the most secret ambition to hold John's job myself. If you don't have the courage to point, John White whispered, you can't expect them to have the courage to convict.

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