Shadrach Johnson faces the jury with the self-possession of a gifted young choir member asked to sing a solo for a strange congregation. With solemn gravity, he says, “Mr. Avery just asked me if I have no shame. That’s a hell of a thing to say, ladies and gentlemen. And while I don’t believe that he deserves an answer, I believe you do. Let me tell you why I brought this case to trial.

“To help make things clear, I’m going to take a page out of my learned opponent’s book. From the very beginning of this ordeal, when I first learned about the relations between Tom Cage and Viola Turner, I was reminded of the biblical parables I’d heard in my youth. And I’ll be frank with you: when the pastor told those stories, I often didn’t fully grasp their meaning.”

Several jurors nod in empathy at this.

“But,” Shad goes on, “even when I was confused, I sensed that an important truth was buried in there somewhere. So today I’m going to tell you a parable.” Shad steps away from the lectern and begins walking slowly and apparently without destination, with one hand folded into the other at the height of his first jacket button. “I want you to think back to ancient times, to biblical times, to a land known as the Caucasian Empire. That empire was a kingdom of white people. But within it lived many black folks, people who had begun life as slaves but who had shed their chains and lived and worked among the Caucasians, trying to earn a meager living.

“In that hot and ancient land, a young black man and woman were walking down a road. They were brother and sister. And on that road they met five ignorant, cruel soldiers of the empire. Why do I say soldiers? Because what were the members of the Double Eagle group other than the soldiers of an invisible empire? So . . . the soldiers challenged the brother and sister, saying, ‘You have broken our law and refused to remain in your place.’ When the brother argued, the soldiers beat and killed him. Then they raped his sister, to punish her, and because they had always coveted her. Then they told the girl, ‘Leave this land and never return. If you do, you shall suffer the same fate as your brother.’

“That poor girl hobbled down the road, wounded and bleeding. After a while, she came to the house of a learned physician. She knocked on the door and asked for help. The physician took her in, tended her wounds, and asked what had befallen her. When she told him, the physician said, ‘I can tend your wounds and nurse you back to health, but we cannot tell the sheriff what happened on the road, because the emperor will not punish his own soldiers for hurting you.’