Page 26 - The Houseguest

to the accident. She said at work she had been spilling coffee and getting confused. She testified under oath that sometimes the lights above her in the coffee shop would, “like...get blurry...like a fuzzy fog.” The scar she bore from the accident across her left cheek was made more visible with some dark blush, a makeup tip formulated by her lawyer and her stepmother to solicit sympathy. Most attorneys will advise their female defendants to dress in a subdued, modest fashion to appear as innocent as possible. But these women had an entirely different strategy that I had never personally witnessed a defense team utilize in a courtroom. Knowing they had a collective arsenal in their possession and intending to capitalize on it, they dressed to match their plan. Without verbally admitting it, for that would be entirely unethical, the attorneys and the Spence women secretly strategized, each knowing the part they were expected to play.
April would catch the eye of the 75% male jury in hopes that she could use what was left of her sensual savvy. After all, there was considerable distance between the jury and the defendant’s table and from afar, she could still pass as relatively noticeable. Rachel followed the tactics and displayed the most innocent, yet provocative facade she could muster. As the scenario unfolded in front of me, I thought how foolish a gamble it was to belittle man’s control of his natural impulses. Men of a jury, or so I believed, would never be influenced in this day and age by sexual innuendo, at least not willfully.
Of course, they didn’t rely on that strategy entirely...they only worked it in, as icing on the cake. Primarily, they used April Spence’s revelations of Rachel’s childhood, along with the defense’s paid
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The Houseguest by Linda Ellis www.LindaEllis.life