Living With the Choices We Make (Domestic Violence / Abuse) ✔️

40 - We, The Jury, Find....

This chapter is dedicated to mrsMartinez7. Thanks so much for reading my stories and your many votes XD.

40 - We, The Jury, Find....  

Marcus's words are followed by total silence. I stare at the jury, quickly wiping away most of my tears as they gaze randomly into the courtroom, avoiding at all cost to look in my direction. I wonder what these people truly think of me. Pam warned me that the closing would be hard but I never expected Marcus to just reduce me to nothing.

Luckily, Pam draws the attention away from me as she rises and approaches the jury box. For a moment, her eyes wander from face to face and then she begins to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I want to thank you for participating in this trial. Jury duty is an important responsibility, one of the pillars of our justice system, and should not be taken lightly - especially in a criminal case like this one. Rena Cooper is putting her life into your hands and she deserves that you weigh all of the evidence and judge her fairly according to the law, even if you don't agree with her actions."

She pauses and lets her words sink in. "Mr. Forrester told you that Rena had many options available to her and I agree, but that is not what this case is all about. This case is about a choice she made and it doesn't matter if you would have made that same choice if you were in her shoes. All that matters is whether Rena reasonably feared for the life of her unborn son at the time of the murder because if that was the case, she was justified under the laws of this state to protect him. It's as simple as that."

She steps closer, her hands coming to rest on the bannister of the jury box. She keeps eye contact at all times, moving from juror to juror. They are fixed on her lips without making a sound, absorbing every word. The tension is sizzling in the courtroom and I am just glad she is my lawyer and not on the other side.

"So what is a reasonable fear? We all agree that if a burglar comes into your home and threatens you or your kids with a gun, you are allowed to end his life in self defense. Yet, in this case, there was no physical threat, that's undisputed. But just because Mr. Parks didn't hold a gun in his hand or beat Rena to a pulp that night doesn't mean she didn't need to fear him. To the contrary, she had plenty of reason to be terrified of this man because he had already proven to her what he was capable of."

She walks to the monitor and points at the beaming Brent on the screen. "This is not the Brent Parks that Rena knew. That Brent was cruel and violent and unpredictable - an abuser and rapist of the worst kind who took advantage of a young and gentle girl and utterly destroyed her. He beat her with a belt, kicked her unconscious, burned her with cigarettes and threatened to put a bullet into her head. On top of that, the mental pressure Rena was under was unbearable."

She pauses, giving the jurors time to remember the horrors I testified about.

"But that was not all." Her voice is slightly raised. "Brent Parks also murdered his unborn child on a previous occasion and Rena was unable to stop him. So the question is - can you truly blame her that this time around, she wanted to protect her baby from harm at all cost? Can you fault her that she chose her son's life over the one of her abuser?"

The faces of the jurors display mixed emotions, one woman is quietly wiping away a few tears while that new juror from this morning is observing Brent's picture with a tilted head. A few nod while others click their tongue - there is no way to figure out what they truly think.

Pam takes the remote and to my surprise, the display changes to a younger version of myself - I couldn't have been much older than five. My eyes were big and empty, the sorrow written all over my face. Come to think of it, it must have been taken a few weeks after my mother's death.