I try to stick to evidence and logic in my arguments. I emphasize that in the absence of a direct evidentiary tie between the crime and the defendant, it’s legally improper to deliver a guilty verdict. Henry makes a more emotional appeal. Without questioning whether the defendant wrote the confession, he suggests that its contents may have been written under duress. He is shouted down by the others, who tell him that because this possibility was not presented by the defense, it’s merely a conspiracy theory and we can’t consider it.

Secretly, I’m considering it too. According to Stevenson’s Innocence Project, out of the hundreds of prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence after its introduction in the 1980s, one in four made a false confession. If the defendant did in fact write a confession but is claiming he didn’t, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the account given by the police is therefore the truth. An innocent man facing a monolithic judicial system accusing him unjustly might well lie if it seemed like his best hope of exonerating himself. How would we know, if not for his testimony? What would it look like if the earth revolved around the sun?

The defendant also claims he was never notified of a call from a lawyer to the precinct where he was being held. The form noting the call is marked with a time just minutes after the time noted on the confession. The proximity seems to me to be cause for unease. I’m suspicious of the chronology. The others tell me that if the confession was made after a call from a lawyer, it would have been illegal, and should have been excluded from evidence. If it hasn’t been excluded, I need to consider it. The implication is that if cops break the law, we have no means and no right to stop them.

The defendant did sign a Miranda waiver, a fact made much of by some of my fellow jurors. An innocent person wouldn’t talk to the cops, they say. I remember an article I once read about the psychology of interrogation. In actual fact, 80% of suspects decline their Miranda rights in order to appear cooperative. Hostile officers, interrogation rooms, hunger — it’s hardly a stretch to say that these factors can cause intimidation and hasty compliance, especially in light of growing awareness of police brutality. Would a young black man who is under arrest sign a blank page if instructed to do so by a cop? I don’t know whether or not this one did, but it would be unmistakably prejudicial to rule it an impossibility.

Anthony is angry at the direction taken by our deliberations, which he believes should proceed with the inexorable logic of a mathematical proof. He surreptitiously writes a jury note, which the judge told us should be delivered with the whole jury’s consent. He privately asks the foreman to sign it. Before he’s able to deliver it, I stop him. The note accuses another juror of improperly insisting on “baseless speculation.” It’s a coded attempt to eliminate Henry from the jury. To the rest of the jury’s credit, no one allows it to reach the judge. The foreman admits she didn’t know what it said when she signed it.

I’m struck by the incident’s resonance. It’s a conspiracy that hinges on a person signing a form she didn’t read.