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Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.
Wendall Rohr and a legal team of successful tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer. The trial is to be held in Biloxi, Mississippi, a state thought to have favorable tort laws and sympathetic juries. The defendant is Pynex, a tobacco company.
Even before the jury has been sworn in, a stealth juror, Nicholas Easter, has begun to quietly connive behind the scenes, in concert with a mysterious woman known only as Marlee.
Rankin Fitch, a shady "consultant" who has directed eight successful trials for the tobacco industry, has placed a camera in the courtroom in order to observe the proceedings in his office nearby. He has begun to plot many schemes to reach to the jury. He planned to get to Millie Dupree throughblackmailing her husband through a tape that has him trying to bribe an official. He reaches to Lonnie Shaver through convincing a company to buy his employer and convince him through orientation. He also tries to reach Rikki Coleman through a blackmail of revealing her abortion to her husband. As the case continues, Fitch is approached by Marlee with a proposal to "buy" the verdict.
However, as Fitch investigates Marlee's past, he discovers that her parents have been killed by smoking and that Marlee was actually planning against the defense. However, he has already sent the $10 million, so he lost $10 million in addition to having lost the trial.
Easter becomes jury foreman after the previous one became ill (an illness resulting from Nicolas and Marlee spiking his coffee) and convinces them to find for the plaintiff and make a large monetary award – $2 million for compensatory damages, and $400 million for punitive measures. The defense lawyers and their employers are devastated. Whilst Easter and Marlee are now rich through short-selling the tobacco companies' stocks and
Wendall Rohr and a legal team of successful tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer. The trial is to be held in Biloxi, Mississippi, a state thought to have favorable tort laws and sympathetic juries. The defendant is Pynex, a tobacco company.
Even before the jury has been sworn in, a stealth juror, Nicholas Easter, has begun to quietly connive behind the scenes, in concert with a mysterious woman known only as Marlee.
Rankin Fitch, a shady "consultant" who has directed eight successful trials for the tobacco industry, has placed a camera in the courtroom in order to observe the proceedings in his office nearby. He has begun to plot many schemes to reach to the jury. He planned to get to Millie Dupree throughblackmailing her husband through a tape that has him trying to bribe an official. He reaches to Lonnie Shaver through convincing a company to buy his employer and convince him through orientation. He also tries to reach Rikki Coleman through a blackmail of revealing her abortion to her husband. As the case continues, Fitch is approached by Marlee with a proposal to "buy" the verdict.
However, as Fitch investigates Marlee's past, he discovers that her parents have been killed by smoking and that Marlee was actually planning against the defense. However, he has already sent the $10 million, so he lost $10 million in addition to having lost the trial.
Easter becomes jury foreman after the previous one became ill (an illness resulting from Nicolas and Marlee spiking his coffee) and convinces them to find for the plaintiff and make a large monetary award – $2 million for compensatory damages, and $400 million for punitive measures. The defense lawyers and their employers are devastated. Whilst Easter and Marlee are now rich through short-selling the tobacco companies' stocks and