Anatony of a Jury

Those who have had jury experience will recognize the accuracy of Wishman's views, especially regarding the ""halo effect'' on jurors that attends their realization of powerful responsibility. Basing his book on the findings of the University of Chicago Jury Project of the 1950ssurprisingly valid still, at least as presented hereand other studies, as well as on his own observations as a trial attorney, the author stages a mock murder case, from commission of a crime through trial verdict. Suspect is black, married with two children, a bodyguard, accused of the rape-murder of the wife of his employer, a doctor, in this white family's New Jersey home. With novelistic drama, the legal process unfolds; and although we learn the victim's family secrets as brought out in court, we're told nothing about the defendant's domestic life. More interesting and instructive than the case itself, however, are the trial dynamics, and the jurors' reactions to the evidence as they deliberate and return a verdict of not guilty. BOMC alternate. (June 16)