A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)

by John Grisham

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A TIME TO KILL was inspired by a dramatic event I witnessed in a courtroom 35 years ago. I was 30 years old and had never thought about writing anything other than legal briefs and threatening letters to insurance companies. My initial goal was to simply write the story. I had no deadline, no schedule, no idea when I would finish or what I would do if I ever finished. And that is not the original title. It’s too awful to even think about.

Billy Ray Cobb was the younger and smaller of the two rednecks.

The opening scene is still hard to take. I can’t read it now. When I wrote it, I didn’t have a daughter. She came two years later. When I saw it on film I had to look away. However, as awful as it is, it was inspired – if that’s the right word – by a real case in rural Mississippi back in the 1970’s. I heard about it when I was in law school.

Ozzie Walls was the only black sheriff in Mississippi. There had been a few others in recent history, but for the moment he was the only one. He took great pride in that fact, since Ford County was seventy-four percent white and the other black sheriffs had been from much blacker counties. Not since Reconstruction had a black sheriff been elected in a white county in Mississippi.

When I began as a lawyer, there was only one black sheriff in north Mississippi, and he was from a black-majority county. I got to know him well and really liked him, then he was murdered on the job. He was my inspiration for Ozzie.

Jake had often wondered why every small Southern town had an Adams, a Jefferson, and a Washington, but no Lincoln or Grant.

Judging from the mail I’ve received over the past 30 years, there are indeed a number of Lincoln Streets and Grant Streets all over the South. I stand corrected. However, their number pales in comparison to the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adams, and, especially, the Lee Streets.

“The system reflects society. It’s not always fair, but it’s as fair as the system in New York, or Massachusetts, or California. It’s as fair as biased, emotional humans can make it.”

Any system of justice and punishment is only as fair as the people who devise it and administer it. And those people, whoever they are, are human and make mistakes.

It’s a fragile system, this trusting of lives to twelve average, ordinary people who do not understand the law and are intimidated by the process.”

It still amazes me that we do this, and not only do it, but believe in it fiercely. I once trusted juries and for the most part still do, but I have seen so many bad decisions in wrongful convictions cases that I doubt the wisdom of allowing lay people, and often uneducated and/or unsophisticated lay people, to pronounce guilt or innocence.

“I think children have a right not to be raped, and their parents have the right to protect them. I think little girls are special, and if mine was tied to a tree and gang raped by two dopeheads I’m sure it would make me crazy. I think good and decent fathers should have a constitutional right to execute any pervert who touches their children.

This is the initial and emotional reaction by any father when confronted with such a nightmare, and it is the crux of the novel’s plot. The obvious question posed by the story is simply this: How would a jury react to a father who got his own revenge and did exactly what the jurors would have done if given the chance?

“You shouldn’t criticize, Stan. It’s an easy habit to acquire and an impossible one to break. It robs your soul of character.”

I’m not even sure who said this but it sounds like Jake on his soap box. (I don’t know who because I have never read the book. Once I’m finished I move on to the next and have never gone back.) My mother despised criticizing and this is something I heard her say many times.

“I’m Ellen Roark.”

In the original draft, the law student (Ellen Row Ark) was a male, and he became a spy for the prosecution. My wife, Renee, is still my first and best reader, and she noticed a dearth of female characters in the story. Thus, the change.

Make friends with fear, Lucien always said, because it will not go away, and it will destroy you if left uncontrolled.

A trial lawyer, like a gladiator in a fight, walks into the courtroom with a dozen things to be afraid of. Big trials usually start on Monday, and the lawyers work around the clock all weekend getting ready. There is a mountain of stress and tension. And fear. The stakes are so high, especially in a death penalty case. The great trial lawyers learn to handle the fear and use it to their advantage. There’s an old saying: “If you’re not afraid you’re not ready.”

“As to each count of the indictment, we the jury find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity.”

This is a major deviation from established law. In the story, once the jury ruled that Carl Lee was not guilty by reason of insanity, he was sent home for good, a free man. In real life it’s not that simple. He would have been kept in custody, taken to a mental health facility, and treated for his insanity. If he recovered, he would have been put on trial again.

About the Author

A TIME TO KILL was published – to bad reviews and reader indifference – in 1989. I waited 24 years to bring Jake back for another trial, in SYCAMORE ROW. That book was popular because so many readers enjoy Jake and supporting cast. A TIME FOR MERCY is the story of Jake, back in the courtroom, this time defending a 16-year-old kid who shot a deputy. Jake didn’t want the case but no one else would take it. Judge Noose forced it on him, and the town of Clanton turns against Jake. It will be out October 13. Enjoy!! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53301511-a-time-for-mercy