“Make friends with fear.”
Here, Lucien prepares Jake to face the jury for the first time. He encourages Jake to embrace fear and points out that he is not the only one in that courtroom who feels afraid. The jury is also afraid, and Carl Lee is the most afraid of all. He faces the death penalty, and the outcome of the case determines whether he will live or die. To act unafraid would be disingenuous, so, Lucien says, act afraid if you feel afraid. The jury will trust you more for it.
“Perhaps the most horrible crime of all is the violent rape of a child.”
This is a line from Jake's closing argument, where he suggests that the long-term consequences of this particular crime, the rape of a child, are worse even than murder, because a child doesn't understand immediately what is happening to them or why it is happening. A child will have to contend with their expanding understanding of what has happened to them for the rest of their childhood and, on top of that, may suffer from PTSD. While it's difficult to say definitively what the "most horrible crime of all" is, Jake's argument proves powerful for many members of the jury.
“Death is too good for them, much too good.”
Here, Jake argues over the efficacy of the death penalty with Ellen Roark. Roark argues that the death penalty is barbaric and should never be used. Jake argues that it should be used more.
“Lemme ask you this. If it was your little girl, and if it was two niggers, and you could get your hands on them, what would you do?”
Before Carl Lee kills Cobb and Willard, he consults Jake about the legal fallout and asks Jake if he will represent him after he kills them. Jake tries to convince Carl Lee not to kill anyone, so Carl Lee asks Jake what he would do if the roles were reversed.
“It’s easy to say I would, but a man don’t know what he’d do. I think my kids need me at home a whole lot more than Parchman needs me. What would you be thinkin’, Jake?”
Here, Jake tells Sheriff Walls that Carl Lee told him about a plan to kill Cobb and Willard. Walls assures Jake that Carl Lee is thinking what any father would be thinking in that moment, but Walls also assures Jake that Cobb and Willard are under tight security and would not be vulnerable to an attack by Carl Lee. He is obviously wrong about that.
"I haven’t seen too many people on trial for murder with that kind of money.”
Here, Jake explains to Carl Lee how much money he would charge to defend a capital murder case for someone with "plenty of money." At the same time, Jake comments on how people with that kind of money don't often find themselves on trial, which speaks to the socio-economic factors that drive people's relationship to the criminal justice system.
“They will have one psychiatrist from Whitfield. He’ll examine the defendant for a few hours, and then drive up for trial and testify that the defendant is the sanest man he’s ever met. He’s never seen a legally insane defendant. To him no one is insane. Everybody’s blessed with perfect mental health. Whitfield is full of sane people, except when it applies for government money, then half the state’s crazy. He’d get fired if he started saying defendants are legally insane. So that’s who you’re up against.”
Here, Lucien explains to Jake yet another corrupt process in the criminal justice system, which is the expert witness testimony of psychiatrists in an insanity defense case. Jake ends up using this tip from Lucien to discredit the state's doctor by demonstrating how in close to fifty trials, the doctor has never once testified in favor of the insanity of a defendant.
"The problem with the death penalty is that we don’t use it enough.”
Jake says this to Ellen Roark while they argue over the efficacy of the death penalty. Jake considers himself a liberal, but Ellen explains that really, he is a conservative, and the only reason he can consider himself a liberal is because he's surrounded by people that are far more conservative than he is.
Too many of the press hounds had betrayed their hosts and printed unkind, unflattering, and unfair words about the county and its people. It was amazing how they could arrive in packs from all over and within twenty-four hours become experts on a place they had never heard of and a people they had never met.
This quote summarizes the antagonistic relationship between the people of Clanton, Mississippi and the press, which largely hails from out of town. Grisham proposes that the people of Clanton have a predisposition to be welcoming to out-of-towners, but the press has repeatedly painted their town as backward and racist and generalizes about the people who live there. Thus, over time, the press get the cold shoulder around town.
“This is the hardest part,” Lucien said. “Waiting on twelve average, everyday people to make sense of all this.”
In this quote, Lucien emphasizes one of the hallmarks of the U.S. judicial system and other democratic governance systems, which is that a person is found quilty or innocent by a jury of their peers. After all the expert witnesses, legal research, and spirited, informed arguments, the ultimate decision is made by people with no legal expertise.
