The Courage to Judge

A clerk was reading out names, and I was praying that none of them would be mine.

Tony Liani had been a French citizen for only a few months when a random draw placed him on the jury of a criminal trial. A young man had been beaten to death at dawn. Six people stood accused - and each one swore the fatal blow belonged to someone else.

For nine days, Tony sat in judgment of strangers. He watched a mother relive her son's death in a photograph. He listened to the accused blame one another, saw evidence go missing, and felt the trial follow the jurors home. He was asked to decide the fate of another human being on the strength of his own conviction alone - and to live, ever after, with a doubt that conviction could never silence.

The Courage to Judge is a spare, honest account of what jury service does to the person who serves. It is about duty and fear, about deciding when you cannot be certain, and about carrying home what you cannot unsee. Nobody prepares you for that.

A French citizen, born in Kenya, Tony Liani lived this story. It is his first book.