The man squirmed in the jury box. Gentry Caudill, the lead prosecutor in the Rae Carruth murder trial, pushed harder. It was cold inside the courtroom and every eye was watching. With that, the judge sent him home. And the man became one of dozens in this trial who have been forced to struggle with the conflict between following your heart and following the law.
Laws spell out what society believes is right and wrong.
Sometimes people disagree with the law enough to break it - protesters who block a building, pacifists who avoid the draft out of a heartfelt objection to war. Still, most people who break the law do it out of rage or greed or desperation. And the vast majority of us are willing to do what the law books say, except where it comes to doing 70 in a 55 zone. In the Carruth courtroom, the question has flesh and bone and blood. Jurors have to give life and death equal weight.