299 Days: The Visitors

Chapter 152 The Verdict (June 6)

Grant asked each defendant if they had anything to say. They declined, and Frankie didn’t even answer. He wanted this over with.

Grant said to the jury, “It is now up to you to decide guilt. I, as the judge, will not comment on the evidence or tell you what I think. This decision is yours alone. You will be put in a room for deliberations and cannot talk to anyone outside the jury, even if this deliberation takes multiple days. You can take all the time you need. Your decision must be unanimous among the twelve regular jurors. The two alternates cannot participate in the deliberations, unless they become a regular juror because one of the regular jurors gets sick, or something like that.”

One of the jurors asked, “Can we go into the kitchen and deliberate?” That meant that they didn’t think this would take long. Of course it wouldn’t.

“Yes,” Grant said.

The jury went into the kitchen for about five minutes. A member of the jury came out. Everyone was on pins and needles anxiously awaiting the quick and certain verdict.

“Um, we’ll need some more time,” she said. Most in the audience were let down. They wanted a quick deliberation.

“Take as long as you need,” Grant said. “If you need another place to do it, let me know. We can get a house for you in case it takes days.”

“Days!” a man in the audience yelled. “C’mon!”

Grant glared at the man. “The jury decides, sir, not the audience.”

The juror went back in the kitchen. Fifteen minutes passed. She came back out and said they needed a house for the deliberations. Arrangements were made to use the house closest to the Grange.

After settling into the house, an hour passed. Then two hours. People in the audience were leaving and going home. No one could believe that this was possibly such a complicated decision.

Grant knew why this was taking so long: the Snelling juror. Damn it. One asshole was ruining this whole thing. Now Frankie would be released and killed by a vigilante, which was the exact opposite of the fair and orderly system Grant wanted so desperately out there.

Finally, the juror came back over to the Grange. She had been crying. “We have a verdict.”

Grant nodded and told her to bring the jury back to the Grange. Word got out that the jury had made a decision and people started returning. Finally, the jury and audience were assembled.

The jury foreman, the same woman who told them they had reached a verdict, stood up and softly said, “We find all the defendants guilty on all charges.”

A few people cheered; most didn’t. They knew how serious this was and the horrible things that would follow.

Grant said, “Thank you, ma’am, for delivering the verdict. Now is when I poll the jury, which is asking each juror if this is their verdict.” Grant asked each juror and they agreed that it was their verdict.

When Grant got to the Snelling juror, the audience was silent. They all wanted to hear what he had to say.

“And you, sir, is this your verdict?” Grant asked him.

“Guilty,” he said.

“Sir,” Grant said, “you expressed reservations about the legal authority for this whole trial. May I ask why you voted to convict?”

“Yes,” he said. He spoke quietly and seriously. “I have been trying to convince myself that none of this is necessary, that everything will go back to normal. But I can’t. When I heard what that man,” he said referring to Frankie, “did, I realized there are bad people doing bad things and we need to do something. Even if that’s something that we don’t want to do, and something we never imagined having to do.” He held his head up high, as if he were relieved that he had finally resolved this difficult problem that had been bothering him. “It has to be done,” he said. “We don’t have to like it, but it has to be done.” He shrugged.

“Thank you for your candor, sir,” Grant said. “We all appreciate that you thought long and hard about this, as any decent person would. Thank you.” The man nodded his thanks to Grant.

“Now it’s time for the judge’s suggested sentence,” Grant said.

This was the really hard part for him. The sentence had to be right for these people, but he also realized that the sentences had to be right for future cases. These sentences would set the tone for life at Pierce Point. If they were too light, people would not be deterred from committing crimes. If the sentences were too harsh, people would rebel and reject all he was trying to do to make Pierce Point a Patriot stronghold. There was a lot on the line.

In the seconds he spent thinking about the sentences, a thought flashed through his mind. He remembered once hearing about the one, two, and ten percent of people. It was that one percent of people in a given population are just plain evil. They were the psychos. The one-percenters would commit crimes even if everything were handed to them. They loved to hurt people. Like the guy who holds up a store, gets the money, and then shoots the clerk, anyway, just for fun.

Another two percent were the career criminals who didn’t know any other way. For them, crime paid. And in the years leading up to the Collapse, crime really paid because the police and courts were stretched so thin. Deterrence rarely worked on the two-percenter career criminals because crime was all they knew. They didn’t want to work, and wouldn’t know how to even if they wanted to. If you could figure out a way to make crime not pay, a few career criminals might try to live a legitimate life, but probably not. Why should the community risk it? The two-percent career criminals needed to stay in jail or, in some cases, be executed. That was the only way to stop them from preying on the community.

Another ten percent of the population were the scumbags. They were the ones who made fake workers’ compensation claims, got welfare benefits they didn’t qualify for, and carried out a multitude of petty scams. They were not violent criminals. Yet. What stopped the scumbags from committing violent crimes was the police or armed neighbors. The scumbags were deterred when superior force meant they’d get caught or killed. The scumbags weren’t a problem when the police were around. But when the police weren’t around, the scumbags started to do whatever they could get away with. And, because they made up roughly ten percent of the population, the scumbags were the main group a community should worry about because they were a sizable chunk of the population.

The sentences at Pierce Point needed to address the one-percenter psycho, two-percenter career criminal, and ten-percenter scumbag population. Obviously, the only way to address the one-percenter psychos was to lock them up or kill them. The same was largely true for the two-percenter career criminals.

The ten-percenter scumbag population, however, could be deterred. Tough sentences and, even more importantly, a high risk of getting caught from the police or armed neighbors, would cut down their crimes to manageable levels. An outbreak of crimes by the scumbags was what Grant feared the most. The one-percenter psychos, like Frankie, and two-percenter career criminals, like Ronnie, could be dealt with. They were just three percent. Manageable.

But, ten percent of Pierce Point going on a crime spree would be chaos. It would make normal life impossible. The scumbags needed to be the main audience for the sentences. They needed to be deterred by what happened to Frankie, Josie, Ronnie, and especially Brittany.

With that in mind, Grant said to the jury, “Thank you. Now I will suggest some sentences, but they are only suggestions.”

“First,” Grant said, “Brittany Franks. She asked if it’s too late for her at age twenty-four. I don’t think it should be.” Brittany cried out in relief, and Grant continued. “I think she understands that what she did was wrong. I think she should be put in jail for a month and work to earn her keep and to pay back the people she stole from. She has already served about three weeks in jail, so she should stay in a few more days to make it a month. She should pay her neighbors back, with her labor, three times what she stole. Crime shouldn’t pay.” Grant suspected Brittany fit in the ten-percenter category. Since there were essentially no police out at Pierce Point leading up to the Collapse, she was probably doing whatever was easy back then. She had not yet become a two-percenter career criminal. She was still salvageable.

“Ronnie Williams is a different story,” Grant said. “I don’t think he understands, or even cares, about what happened.” He was a two-percenter career criminal, Grant thought. “He stole some property. He should spend a year in jail, working for his keep and paying back his victims.” Ronnie was emotionless, which only helped make Grant’s point for him.

Grant looked right out at the crowd and said in his most serious voice. “People need to understand that if you steal out here, you’re done for. You will spend a year—a miserable year—or more, in jail. Do not steal. Do not.” Many in the crowd were nodding. Good. The ten-percenters were listening. And the ten-percenters who weren’t in the audience would hear about it quickly from everyone else in the community.

“Josie Phillips is a hard case,” Grant said. He put her in the two-percenter career criminal category. Given what she’d done, there was no going back. She couldn’t lead a legitimate life after this. Besides, what she did simply called for the death penalty. It just did.

“She is pathetic,” Grant said. “You feel sorry for what she’s become, but she committed rape of a child on at least one occasion. I have always thought that rape, when clearly proven, especially rape of a child, should be the death penalty.” Josie started wailing again. “And I see no reason to depart from that,” Grant said. Some in the crowd gasped. This was real. They were really talking about killing people. No more weeks of debates about whether it was legal to hold a trial; now they were talking about killing people. Even though people had been easing into this conclusion for weeks, it still came as a shock when it actually happened.

“Frankie Richardson,” Grant said. “Well, he’s an easy case. He deserves the death penalty. Period.” No one in the crowd disagreed with that. Frankie was emotionless.

“Those are my suggestions, but the ultimate decision is yours,” Grant said to the jury.

They went back into the kitchen for a few minutes. Josie was breaking down during that time. Frankie just sat there. He wanted to get this over with.

The jury came back and the foreman said, “The jury concurs with your suggestions.” Josie cried some more.

Grant called Rich up to where he was sitting and whispered, “How are we going to carry out the sentences?” Grant was realizing again how much they were making this up as they went.

Rich shrugged and whispered, “We talked about hanging. That still makes sense.” They quickly and quietly talked about the logistics: the rope, the platform. They agreed to use a horse. They didn’t have time to make a platform and, frankly, Grant didn’t want to make one. Frankie wasn’t worth the lumber. Besides, Grant hoped they’d never have to use it again. Why build something you didn’t want to use? A horse would be fine. Rich knew someone with a horse.

After their whispered conversation, Grant said out loud, “Guards, please take Ms. Franks and Mr. Williams to the jail. The hanging of Ms. Phillips and Mr. Richardson will occur tomorrow morning.” The room was silent. They were really going to do it. Hang people.

Grant looked around for a gavel. He didn’t have one. He simply said, “Court is adjourned,” and stood up. That was it.

People came up to Grant and wanted to talk to him, but he wasn’t interested in talking to anyone. He wanted to leave. He wanted to be alone.

The enormity of what he’d just done started to well up in him. It was like a brick wall falling on him. He had just ordered two people’s deaths. They were guilty as hell and deserved the hanging, and a lot more, but still, Grant didn’t enjoy it. He felt sick to his stomach. He started to get nauseous.

After a few seconds, the nausea and brick wall subsided. He didn’t regret what he had done, he just wished he didn’t have to do it. Like with the looters he shot. He would have done the same thing again, but he wished those men wouldn’t have been out that night and wouldn’t have threatened him and Ron. He wished people would quit doing bad things. Stop killing, stealing, and raping. He wished he could just call 911 and have someone else deal with everything.

Grant grabbed his AR that had been leaning against the wall behind him where he was sitting. He also grabbed his kit, which was hanging in the coat closet near the entrance to the Grange. He put it on and got on his moped. He needed to ride around to clear his head, but that would use up valuable gas, so he decided to make an impromptu inspection of the gate. Yeah, that was it. He was inspecting the gate. He just needed to be out of there.

As he left, he could hear Josie screaming while the guards were taking her off for the final preparations. He had to get away from that sound. Screams of impending death – even from a monster – are still screams. He had to get away.

During his ride, he began getting his mind back in the game. As he came within view of the gate, he realized why all these horrible things were necessary. The gate. The gate said it all. There were people out there who wanted to hurt them. There were wolves who wanted to attack the sheep. Some of the wolves were inside the gate and had already attacked the sheep, like poor little innocent Crystal. Sheepdogs had to do unpleasant things to protect the sheep. You’re a sheepdog, Grant told himself. You didn’t ask for this job, but you need to do it.

He pulled over quickly, popped the kickstand, got off the little girly moped and realized that no one could see him. He leaned over the ditch on the side of the road and threw up. Then he cried. He would just take a minute and he’d be fine.

Then he fell to the ground and cried some more. He was on his knees, crying like he’d never cried before. He was screaming, “Why?”

You’ll see.