“No problem with judging a man separate from his vocation to God? That a man who took holy vows could commit such a horrible sin? That a man everyone thinks is a good, honorable person could possibly transform into a very bad person?”

Anne Malone leaned forward on her seat. If it were only as simple as wearing a white hat or a Roman collar. She wasn’t sure what to make of the pastor, who now bowed his head in penitential pose. She gripped her purse and sniffed, considering the questions put forth. I suppose I know as much about a lapse from Christianity as anyone in this courtroom.

“We are all capable of change.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Malone.” And with that answer Anne had found her way onto the jury for Standing Raleigh.

Blackburn knocked out the three jurors who had raised their hands and gave the grid back to Whiteside. They took turns huddling and whispering before and after every question, and this took time. Anne figured out that Mr. Graybill was a jury consultant who was speed-reading the questionnaires and feeding suggestions to Whiteside. When the defense took away two more black women from the jury, Blackburn made a reverse Batson challenge, which seemed to give Judge Samuels indigestion. A long sidebar ensued with all four lawyers involved and Greenfield holding the jury grid like a cue card for them all to read from.

Anne mulled her answers to the voir dire. Judge not. The truth was she knew more about Standing Raleigh than had been revealed by Blackburn’s interrogation. Matthew 7, but then the Lord also warns of false prophets as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Anne had heard stories about the hotshot young minister. He was a bit of a local celebrity—a somewhat more liberal alternative to the dour, dispensational W. A. Criswell, who had shepherded First Baptist since the Normandy landings. First United was a mother church for Dallas and Methodism. Its pulpit was a feeder for bishops and a training spot for the best and brightest out of SMU’s Perkins School of Theology.

But there was a lot of pressure that came with Raleigh’s prestige. And his “controversial” support of equal rights for women and minorities, his opposition to capital punishment, his general yuppie tolerance, did not go over well with everyone in his congregation. This past Lent, he had received death threats. “CHRIST WILL RISE BUT YOU’RE GOING DOWN.” For Easter, Raleigh wore a bulletproof jacket under his vestments.