Hung Jury: The Winds of Freedom Blow

By Michelle Finnegan

Hung Jury tells the story about Astraea, whose name was borrowed from the Greek goddess of Truth. It is Atraea's quest for truth, justice and unconditional love in a world full of land mines, manipulative individuals, growing concerns and dwindling hope. Pray for Help and change

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 24, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462823956

Michelle Finnegan

Michelle Finnegans writing ability and her artistic ability are readily apparent in her worksimply read what she writes and look at what she paints and you know about those. But it is when you find out what she channels these talents into that you know the person she is. She is intelligent, talented, well-educated, charming, funny and delightfulbut she is also caring, compassionate and committed. I spent 28 years in publishing, and during most of that time I was a signer of authors. I know a good project when I see it, and a talented person when I meet one. My other career, college teaching (MITs Sloan School and Harvards JFK School of Government) is also one in which an ability to gauge talent is cultivated. I can recommend Michelle or her work to you without reservation, in the sure knowledge that she will be an asset to any creative enterprise. Terence Heagney

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Copyright © 2008 by Michelle Finnegan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Afterword

To each is given

A bag of tools

A lump of clay

A book of Rules.

And each must make

Or Life is thrown

A stumbling block

Or a stepping stone.

"WHAT IS THE TRUTH?"

—Pontius Pilate

There are three things that will not remain hidden; the sun, the moon and the truth.

—Buddha

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon our heart until in our despair against our will comes wisdom through the awful Grace of God.

—Aescalus

The original dedication to the book was to Princess Diana, Mother Theresa and Gianni Versace for striving to make the world a more beautiful place each with their unique talents and in their own way. I gave the entire printed manuscript with its dedication page to my friend Howard Hall who was hand delivering it to his friend Hillary Moskin who worked at Random House. Howard and Hillary were spending the long weekend in the Hamptons. I was spending the long weekend in Florida. After dinner one night, my friends in Florida and I walked into the lounge at a restaurant when the news of the Princess’ tragic car accident was announced. We were all stunned. Later that same year, we also lost Mother Theresa and Gianni Versace.

The coincidence, of course, concerns me deeply. The trend continued for years, getting more personal and closer to home. I learned of my high school friend, Kim Arthur’s losing battle with Cancer during my independent filming of Hung Jury. Although I had not seen her for years, she lives on in my memory as a vibrant, beautiful cheerleader who brought joy to so many lives and was waked on her 29th birthday.

Somehow, I managed to get the filming completed in time for a film contest in Chicago. The director, Carolyn Deane phoned to tell me she and the entire panel of judges found it so hot, topical and highly marketable that it would be a disservice if she did not phone me to let me know although it is an unwritten rule that they generally do not contact entrants. John Kennedy Jr. graciously donated 200 GEORGE magazines meant to be distributed at the film screening of Hung Jury—which was postponed on July 16, 1999 the day I received the magazines and a phone call regarding his missing plane. As of typing this, years have past and on a few occasions I felt strong enough to try to readdress this project. Alexandra Zapp played Cybele’s character in the film version of Hung Jury. A repeat offender murdered her on July 18, 2002.

I had the support of tremendous friends whose encouragement pulled me through, despite losing too many friends who were taken from us all too soon, without whom my life’s work would not have been as successful nor my personal life as full.

It is now 2008. I am still recovering from attacks on me personally and cars that hit me, and the passing of Alyce Sandy Nash and Jean Claude Parreau in 2007. Let the games begin.

Preface

J. Carter Brown

From RINGS; Five Passions in World Art

To be sure we must never claim the monopoly of truth, let alone look down on other cultures whose values and convictions differ from ours. But the recognition of such differences must not lead us to deny the unity of mankind.

—E.H.Gombrich, Topics of Our Time

Twentieth-Century Issues in Learning

and in Art, 1991

So much divides us. Each individual is unique: Each group has its own affinities. Each nation, driven by pride and survival, fiercely defends its territory, as do the animal kingdoms in the wild. As the affirmation of our individual egos dominates our agenda, as ethnic politics drives us into sharper and sharper differentiations, what kind of a world can we look forward to? In Arthur Schlesinger’s brilliant Disuniting of America and other discussions in the United States of our eighteenth-century ideal, E pluribus unum, we see ourselves degenerating more and more into strident enclaves of affinity. What is there that can life us out of our regressive selves? What vision, what idealism, what aspect of our nature can we look to for a world of harmony and interconnectedness?

The idea of the Olympic Games, the centennial whose rebirth we [celebrated] in 1996, represents precisely that hope. The catalyst for revival of the Olympic Games, the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin, wrote and fought for a rededication to an ideal that he named Olympism. For almost one thousand years in antiquity, wars were suspended in deference to the evenhanded fairness of the Olympic Games. They represent the ultimate in what we call The level playing field.

But Coubertin’s definition of Olympism went beyond athletics or even the ancient moment of truce. In 1904, he wrote in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro, In the golden age of Olympism, the harmonious combination of the arts, letters and sport assured the greatness of the Olympic Games. And so it should be again.

If there is an aspect of humanity that binds us together, it is our emotional selves. Whatever the color of our skin, or the shape of our eyes, however conditioned by centuries of widely divergent cultural learnings, the remains in each of us fundamental human passions that we all share.

As James A. Russell concludes in a thoroughgoing review of the literature examining differences in various cultures in describing the emotions (Psychological Bulletin 110, no 3, 426-50), There is a core of emotional communication that has to do with being human rather than with being a member of a particular culture. The anthropologist Ellen Disanayake, in her book, What is Art For, stresses our common genetic heritage over hundreds of thousands of years, and writes, It is our specieshood, not our nationhood or race that unites us.

The means by which we best express ourselves these basic feelings and put them into lastingly communicable forms is called the arts. The visual arts are our direct access to the hand and mind and heart of the person and culture that created that specific example of visual creativity . . . Emotions themselves interconnect with each other, and for this reason [The RINGS] exhibition is organized so as to show how a given emotion overlaps with the next one addressed. Coubertin was thinking of interconnectedness when, in 1914, he suggested a visual symbol for the modern Olympic Games—the five interconnected rings that have become one of the most widely recognized symbols in the world. His original concept was, of course, geographic (the rings represent the five parts of the world which are now part of Olympism and ready to accept the fertile rivalry that entails, he wrote.) But with geographical diversity—differences of space—comes ethics, religious, cultural, gender diversity, as well as period differences over time.

What [The RINGS] exhibition does not attempt to present, and the issue it confronts, is the experience of a work of art as the precipitator of certain emotions in us. The admitted subjectivity of such an approach might go against the grain of some of us who have been trained in the rigors of art-historical methodology, a relatively recent field of study that has striven for legitimacy in the academic world. In this attempt, the academic study of art has tended to downplay subjectivity, hoping to emulate the achievements through objectivity of modern science. Meanwhile, art history has been exploring a variety of avenues. For example, an art historian at Columbia University not long ago asked the Art Bulletin, (76, no. 3, 394), in the parlance of the day, How can [art history] go beyond herneneutic and semiotic strategies of poststructuralism?

Meanwhile in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, recent developments have begun to give the affective, emotional side of human nature its due. Following on the groundbreaking work of Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry (left brain/right brain), R.B Zajonc (primacy of affect), and Howard Gardner (multiple intelligences), Antonio Damazio states in his Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, published at the end of 1995:

Neither anguish not the elation that love or art can bring about are devalued by understanding some of the myriad biological processes that make them what they are . . .

It does not seem sensible to leave emotions and feelings out of any overall concept of mind. Yet respectable scientific accounts of cognition do precisely that . . . I see feelings as having a truly privileged status. They are represented at many neural levels, including neocortical. Feelings are winners among equals . . . Their influence is immense.

In the United States—whose history has reflected the imprint of early Puritan belief that emotions are dangerous and the arts were the work of the devil—a society bent on generating material wealth has laid its primary emphasis, in its educational philosophy and system of rewards, on human beings as measured by their capacity to maximize a quantifiable bottom line. This focus on economic materialism has tended to shunt any consideration of the arts to the periphery, if not all the way to oblivion.

The time has come, then, to reassert the idealism of Peirre de Courbertin. We must strive to integrate cultural values into a concept of the whole person and explore, with openness and sensitivity, the importance—I would say centrality—of our emotional lives and the riches that await us in receiving, through art, affective transmission from great gulfs of space and time . . .

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Judge Martin for opening my eyes as to how blatantly and overtly corrupt our judicial system has become and to what level it will sink to continue to victimize a victim. Where can a victim turn when the system fails to protect them or the shelters are run by criminals who are more interested in pandering to corrupt individuals with authority for greed of money and power; the addictive things that can never be fully attained because a taste of it requires more. I pray we turn to God and believe He has a plan larger than any man or woman in any office, position or court. Thanks to Judge Martin and his actions I was encouraged to re-explore my own place in the Universe and my connection to God through Experience CREW and contemplate what purpose He has for me.

My ancestors came to this country legally and worked hard to provide a life for their children believing still that the American dream was that a man or woman is free to become anything without the oppressive tyrannical bonds that everyone escaped. America’s founding fathers had a perfect vision by establishing the system of checks and balances that is meant to perfectly monitor a free market system. It has never been perfectly executed but the principles are sound. Your liberty ends at the tips of someone else’s nose, Benjamin Franklin said. No one person is meant to be oppressed by any ruling individual or government for the special interest of another. We are all meant to thrive as long as it does not specifically cause intentional harm to another.

One of my grandfathers came to this country from Ireland when American’s posted signs in their windows Irish Need not Apply because Irish were not wanted in America. My grandfather wanted to go to Australia not America but his sister wanted to come here and my great-grandfather told them America was no place for a woman to go alone. My grandfather had to have three sponsors willing to vouch for his upstanding character, a job lined up before he arrived on the docks, all his papers proving who he was and that he was healthy, and money in his pocket to get from the docks to the address he was registered to go live at. If he did not have all of these items, he would have been sent back. My grandfather did not fail despite the tough odds. He studied and worked hard, graduating early, and attending an Ivy League college. His memory was so sharp he graduated early from college as well, attending BU LAW becoming an attorney and never turning a client away for failure to pay as long as he was fighting for the side of justice. He became so respected by all walks of life, Democrat and Republican alike that he was elected Senator. Were it not for my family’s faith in God, we would not be here. My grandfather’s brother who came over just before him had purchased passage aboard the Titanic and said goodbye to all his friends and family. When he went to say goodbye to his church, they said, Ah, Patrick, you’re such a fine young lad, you don’t belong on the Titanic. That ship will be nothing more than a drunken brawl from coast to coast. Why don’t you cash you tickets in and get passage aboard a different ship. He listened and followed through.

Without CREW and Chris Sheppard the enthusiastic leader, I may not have had the strength, courage or discernment to finally follow through and publish this work. I might have avoided more of life’s challenges or controversy or forgotten how much adversity I have already overcome by the Grace of God alone for a purpose yet to be revealed. I might have forgotten that God created me for a reason and perhaps that reason is to share my own educated, hard earned opinion, even though I am a mere woman. It is with such deep gratitude the wonderful women of CREW explored John Piper’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life and of course Biblical scripture; Liz Chamerlain, Cricket Gogerty, Sasha Snyder, Laura Davisson, Jamie Shorten, Alisha Michels, Ashley Nuest, Ashley Randall, Michelle Minisci, Michelle Hensley, Emily Castillo, Cara Townsend, and of course, Jules Carlson.

I remember my childhood friends and our hopes and dreams about what our life would be like when we grew up. I have been lucky to be surrounded by dynamic women role models during each stage of my life, including my grandmother, all of my aunts and cousins, my former boss, Dr. MaryJane England, Caryn Townsend, Susan Butterworth, Leslie Tweeton, Dawn Curtis, Marsha Wilson, Karrie Weseman Irish, Alexis Hersh Fobes, Lesa Berger Shapiro, China Altman, Sydney Loughran Wolfe, Virginia Culp, Rev. Alyce Sadler, Jean Claggett, Jeane Feight, Sue Huff, Mary Watkins, and too many other sorority sisters to list. I have been able to meet numerous other tremendously interesting women including Denyse Brown, Olga Hirshorn, Myra Jenco Daniels, Diane Connell, Jane Goodall and Coco Blaffert. As a teenager, I met the Dalai Lama who gave me a book that shaped my life. I also got to meet many authors and have autographed copies of books that I will cherish as much as the memory of talking with them, including Dr. Robin Cook, and J. Carter Brown, Director of the National Galleries of Art, Liz Tilberus, Sally Quinn, Jorg Margan, and Anne Morrisey Merrick, who was one of 9 women civilians who imbedded themselves in Vietnam during the war to report the story. The perfectly polite Peggy Post signed the Emily Post Etiquette Book my parents gave me before sending me off to college and then kindly donated new books from the Post Institute to Grace Place, a new community center that benefited children who did not own any books of their own. My American Heritage dictionary was also autographed by Terence Heagney who was VP of Houghton Mifflin, publishers of the dictionary. I’ve met numerous politicians as well as national and international dignitaries. I was lucky to attend the St. Patrick’s Day event in South Boston with former Vice-President Al Gore before he won (lost) the Presidential election and before he became spokesperson for the environment and Nobel Prize winner. Senator John Kerry and Theresa Heinz attended many of the same events with me long before he ran for President of the United States since we are all from Boston. I also met most of the Boston Senators and Congressmen at events in DC and was given a felt tipped pen by Representative Joe Moakley, who fought for social justice his entire life and bravely took on an El Savadorian military death squad—with the backing of high-ranking military authorities—that massacred six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter. I felt equally honored to meet attorney Jan Schlectman, the man played by John Travolta in the film A Civil Action at a fundraiser for Sen. Kerry when he decided to run. I’ve met some very sensational individuals as well, like, Tony Bennet, as Anthony Benedito, Roger Williams, Donny and Marie Osmond, and Edna Hibbel, who kindly invited me to her home where we had a lovely juice party and a personal tour of her back studios. I knew Mark Cuban in Dallas as a fun loving computer geek before he became a celebrity billionaire as well as afterwards when we spoke about my experience producing my first independent film before he became the Independent Film Industry giant that he today. Carol Potter, who went on the become the MOM on the series 90210 was at a wedding I attended in DC, and although she may have forgotten coming over my head and tearing the bouquet from my little hands telling me She needed it more than I did, it’s not a moment a child quickly forgets. So many others have touched my life in immeasurable ways like the Get Along Gan, Kym Herman and Anne Gamache, Bryan Keeling, Scott Sanborn, Chan and Aimee, Deb Mutrie and Michelle Noble, Bernie Kitching, Ish Ritcher and Kevin, Robert Brown, Jon Stavis, Cam Clark, Nicholas Van Campen Taylor, Richard Jacob, Jenny Keller, Adam Bauer and Chris Flood and the diverse group of STPEC affialites and to Gaelen Hatfield who made my books available online. There are so many more that have also helped me, provided protection and encouragement as well as unique challenges that allowed me to become who I am today, but are not listed here due to time and space limitations. At the risk of redundancy, I thank Jeb Killion, Terry Heagney and John Urban who believed in me when I did not even believe in myself nor I would not be here without my parents.

Introduction

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudice and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.

—Marianne Williamson

Chapter 1

Wake Up Call

Astraea found herself walking down a long corridor lighted only by the reddish-orange glow of the exit signs that she could see intermittently in the distance alternating from left to right. The glossy paint of the concrete walls reflected the shine of the lights. As she plodded her way down the hallway, the heavy squeaking of her shoes interrupted what was otherwise an eerie silence. Each exit sign she came to, however, was misleading, for instead of offering a door to the outside world, she could see only another hallway leading to a dead end.

As she passed one misleading sign after another, the intensity of her anxiety grew and the squeaks from her shoes seemed to increase