Topic: Empathy

What the Jury Carries

Approx. 16 min read

In a near-future justice system, a drug called Witness lets jurors feel a person's remembered emotional state from the inside. The law requires that they experience the victim's account before deliberating, and after verdicts turn severe, defense attorneys win the right to make jurors feel the defendant too. Juror number nine draws a case where both accounts are unendurable, and no verdict will let her set either one down.