A Civil Action

1

The next morning, Skinner sends the jurors to their deliberations. Schlichtmann stays right outside of their chambers every day for a week, going home only to sleep. Sometimes members of his team keep him company, but usually it’s just him. Every morning the jurors pass him on their way into their chambers. Every night they pass him on the way out. He tries to gauge whether they seem positively disposed towards him, but he never feels sure.

During the second week, his mother and then Teresa occasionally come to sit with him. Schlichtmann barely seems aware of the company.

2

Jean Coulsey is a juror who would later say that she found his vigil outside their chambers a pathetic spectacle. Most of them, like Judge Skinner, and, like her, found Riley to be arrogant and uncouth. She had found Drobinski to be a wonderful witness and had not liked how Facher had belittled him. The jurors shared many of these sorts of observations with each other, and Coulsey eventually comes to believe that, therefore, the others see the case the same way she does.

When they are presented with the questions they must answer, William Vogel, the jury chairman, is perplexed.