The Last Juror
The Last Juror
The Book “The Juror” was based around the 1970’s, in a small Mississippian town called Clanton, (Now even though it was the 70’s segregation was still pretty big in Mississippi) The book starts off by telling about the main character, Willie Traynor. Willie went to collage and during his last year he dropped out. So he went to his grandmother who gave him the money to buy the newspaper in a small town call Clanton, Mississippi, that he had always wanted to buy. So after getting the money Willie moves to Clanton, and buys the newspaper.
Also living in the town of Clanton was Rhoda Kassellaw, and Danny Padgett. Rhoda Kassellaw was your average widow, she had two children, and pretty much always kept to herself. Danny Padgett, on the other hand, was a rich man. Danny lived with his parents on top of a mountain, on Padgett Island, off the coast of Mississippi. His family was very rich and very powerful. They were like the Italian Mafia of Mississippi, into smuggling, drugs, ect.
One night Danny Padgett broke into Rhoda Kassellaw’s house and raped her in front of her children. After being raped Rhoda ran across the street to her neighbors and when they came outside she said “it’s Danny Padgett” then died.
With the rape and death of Rhoda Kassellaw going on Willie saw it as a great opportunity to finally make something of the local newspaper. So he took cover of the story. He even took pictures of the crime scene and posted them on the front page of the paper, which back then wasn’t something people did, but Willie didn’t care.
Besides covering the rape and death of Rhoda Willie also wrote a once-a-week article on one person of the town. While writing these articles Willie decided he wanted to go to the other side of town, where the blacks live, and write an article about Mrs. Callie Ruffin. Mrs. Callie has nine children, all grown up. Eight of them are attorney’s, the other, Sam, she never sees because he got ran out of town for being with a white woman, and was never to come back again.
After writing about Mrs. Callie Willie decides to become more closer with her. The end up being best friends. He takes her out to movies, dinner, always in a black restaurant, so she never feels awkward, and even manages to smuggle Sam in town at night so she can see him.
Now while Willie and Mrs. Callie are becoming such great friends the town decides that they want to take Danny Padgett to trial, and you wouldn’t believe who gets jury duty… that’s right, Mrs. Callie. As a matter of fact she becomes the first black juror in Mississippi.
During the trial, Danny’s family buys witnesses to lie for Danny. For instance one woman claimed she was with Danny the night of the murder. So since all the so called “witnesses” have different stories, the trial gets drawn out. Danny then told the jurors that if he were convicted he would come back and kill all of whom convicted him.
Well even with all the lies his parents bought him he was still convicted. Being convicted meant that the jurors had to decide on either the death penalty or life. But the votes had to be unanimous in order to get the death sentence. So the town got worried because the last voter was Mrs. Callie. Who was a very religious woman, so the town didn’t think she would go for the death sentence. And they were right. Danny got the life sentence.
Now no one is supposed to know who votes for what, but there was one person who did, Baggie. Willies’ drunk