We Find the Defendant …

Cricket McRae

In high school I once skipped classes to go to a trial. I didn’t know anyone involved in the case. It wasn’t scandalous or even all that interesting. Fraud, if memory serves.

I went because I found out most trials are open to the public. I loved Perry Mason, thought it would be cool to see a real case being tried, and had a friend who as much of a geek as I was who was also willing to skip school that day.

Since then I’ve gone to three other trials just to observe. All were civil cases, and all did involve someone I knew peripherally at least. I sat in the back and took lots of notes in case I’d ever need them for a story. Twice lawyers approached me and asked why I was there.

Because I could be.

Then a couple months back I got my very first jury summons. I could have postponed, but this was as good a time as any to do it. Plus, they’d never actually select me, right? After all, I make up stories about crime. So I entered the courthouse with mixed feelings last week. I wanted to be selected, and at the same time I didn’t.

Arguments! Objections! Witnesses! Experts! What fun!

An actual crime, perhaps someone hurt or worse, and it’s partially up to me to decide what happens to the accused? Not so much fun.

There were thirty people in the jury room. We watched a film designed to deflect resentment about being there at all. I could tell it didn’t really work for most people. Twelve people were selected from that pool. I was one. Six were eliminated after a ton of questioning from the assistant district attorney and the defense attorney. I was one of the six who remained, mostly because I don’t have children, have never been through a nasty divorce, and was not abused as a child.

See, this was a case of negligent child abuse. It was hard to watch the two young girls who tearfully and unwillingly testified against their mother. Photo exhibits, maps, and reports from the police and social services were all introduced. What had looked like a one-day trial spilled into the next day.

I didn’t sleep very well that night.

After closing statements, we were given our instructions and sent off to deliberate. The six of us began earnestly going through the details of what we had to determine in order to find the defendant guilty. After some general discussion one brilliant soul pointed out we would save some time if we went at it from the other direction: Was there or was there not reasonable doubt?

We voted on slips of paper. Not guilty six times over. And not a single one of us liked it. Something had happened that day a year ago. It didn’t appear that an injury had occurred, but it was a volatile household going through a very ugly divorce, with each of the parents and the children playing off each other. Toxic. Unhealthy.

But details were murky at best and contradictory at worst. Reasonable doubt did exist, and just because we didn’t like it didn’t mean we could ignore that.

Have you ever served on a jury? What was the case about? Do you consider jury duty an honor in a free society, a duty, a pain in the patootie, or none of the above?

Justice is Served

Readers of mysteries, like those of romance novels, expect a certain type of ending. Romance readers expect the hero and heroine to be together in the end, living "happily ever after." In mysteries, readers expect justice to be served. The killer meets a fitting end, be it death itself, arrest and conviction, or some other suitable punishment for taking a human life. In that way, readers experience closure and its accompanying sense of satisfaction.

Closure is a psychological term. In the European Review of Social Psychology, cognitive closure was defined as "a desire for definite knowledge on some issue and the eschewal of confusion and ambiguity." So, people have an innate desire for a firm solution as opposed to enduring ambiguity. People's need for closure varies. Those with a high need for closure prefer order, clear rules, and predictability.

I know that I personally have a strong need for closure, and I suspect the same is true of most mystery readers. This need is what drives us to solve the puzzle of "whodunnit" along with the sleuth. We're struggling to close the gaps in our understanding of the situation by looking for clues, interpreting the behavior of suspects, etc.

Sometimes that driving need for closure can cause us to reach a conclusion too early that is erroneous, as described in this article in Psychology Today. And there are plenty of mystery authors that use that to their advantage in devising plots. They plant "twists in the tale" in their stories to drive readers into make one or more false conclusions before finally revealing some new information that leads to the real killer or the real explanation of what's going on.

But knowing "whodunnit" isn't enough for those of us who love reading mysteries. The murderer also has to be punished for their misdeed(s) so justice is served. That is true closure. We understand what happened and the characters receive their rewards and punishments as they deserve them. As I said before, sometimes a punishment is delivered within the legal system, and sometimes it occurs outside the legal system, but it's always fitting. And most mystery authors I know spend a lot of time devising an ending that is fitting and satisfying for their readers.

In my recent release, Deadly Currents, my protagonist, whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner, is faced with a decision near the end. She has discovered who the killer is and has a choice on how justice should be served. She makes that choice based on her character--her upbringing, ethics, beliefs, and training. Her choice brought a satisfying closure to me, and I hope it does for my readers, too.

What about you? Do you have a strong need for closure, to not only understand what happened and who the killer was, but also to see that justice is served? Have you ever been disappointed in the ending of a mystery that didn't provide that satisfying closure to you?