They saw one another almost every day, made eye contact and nodded in the morning, said goodbye with a smile at the end of the day.

They were more than strangers, but less than friends.

That's because for nearly a month, they were jurors in a murder case, and each held a ringside seat to the biggest show in town.

The one thing everyone seemed to be talking about.

I think the prosecutors did a wonderful job.

I think the defense attorney was a little pompous, quite frankly.

Everyone, that is, except them.

It's like the second I told him I was on jury duty, I was going to be out of work for a while.

They said, is it this case?

It's like, no, people learned not to talk to me, and I didn't talk to them about it.

Now, the lawyers on both sides had made their final pitches, and the case was theirs. The judge had given his instructions.

We were just ready.

I mean, the minute we got in that room, we went, oh, good.

Now we can talk to each other.

It was an amazing jury, a group of wonderful people, smart, intelligent, that worked

very hard to do their very best.

There was a brief moment of spontaneous chatter, before jurors got down to the business of

picking a four-person. Then, instead of taking on the question of guilt or innocence, they

discussed the issue that seemed

central to this case. Did Todd Summer die from arsenic poisoning?

We needed to make sure that we all agreed on that or not, because if he didn't, then there's no

case. On that, they were unanimous.

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