Chapter 540 - 253: 12 Angry Men - 4
He looked at the circle.
The circle was round, perfect.
It represented procedural justice, the rigor of the law, the orderly function of society.
It also meant that within this circle, Luigi Randall would be sentenced to life in prison.
Everything seemed to be set in stone.
Davis picked up the eraser and wiped away the analyses of ballistics and psychological struggles on the blackboard.
He stood up, ready to submit the jury’s final verdict form.
Justice hadn’t arrived, but the procedure had been upheld.
Davis reached for the verdict form that needed to be signed.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch the paper,
a low, hoarse voice suddenly echoed in the conference room.
It came from the other end of the long table.
"Wait a minute."
Juror Number Four had suddenly spoken.
The stockbroker pulled a document from the box filled with evidence.
It was a memo submitted in court by Lawyer Wayne, which the judge had dismissed as "irrelevant evidence," but had nonetheless been kept as an appendix in the jury’s materials.
The insurance company’s internal risk assessment report.
Number Four was a rational man, an elite who believed in data and logic.
He didn’t want to convict based on emotion alone. He needed logic to hammer the final nail in Luigi’s coffin and to soothe the consciences of the jurors who were still hesitant.
"Everyone, before we sign, I think we need to take another look at this."
Number Four held up the document.
"In court, Lawyer Wayne kept painting the insurance company as a bloodthirsty demon and Arthur Vance as a butcher."
"But that’s an emotional misdirection."
Number Four opened the document and pointed to a few lines of data.
"Look at this. This is a standard actuarial model. Any business that deals with risk, whether it’s an insurance company or a bank, has to perform these kinds of calculations."
"To maintain solvency, to ensure the interests of the majority of policyholders, an insurance company must set a reasonable payout rate and denial rate."
"If they approved every single claim that came their way, the company would go bankrupt tomorrow, and all the policyholders would be the ones to suffer."
Number Four’s voice was calm and professional, tinged with a sense of superiority.
"This is business logic, not murder."
"Arthur Vance was simply fulfilling his fiduciary duty to the shareholders and the majority of his clients."
Number Four pushed the document in front of Davis, as if it were the final gavel of judgment.
"So, let’s stop getting hung up on morality. Luigi killed an executive who was performing his duties. That’s first-degree murder."
Juror Number Two, the bank teller who hadn’t said much, picked up the document.
He read every word on it carefully under the dim light.
As a teller, he had a natural sensitivity to the written word.
His eyes skimmed past the complex actuarial formulas and landed on a line of fine print at the bottom of the document.
It was an authorization handwritten and signed by Arthur Vance.
Number Two’s hand suddenly trembled.
"Business logic?"
Number Two looked up at Number Four, his voice shaking.
"You call this business logic?"
He held up the document, pointed at the fine print, and read it aloud.
"Calculated average cost to approve this type of targeted therapy surgery for late-stage cancer: two hundred fifty thousand dollars."
"Average cost of litigation damages and out-of-court settlements resulting from claim denial: only fifty thousand dollars."
Number Two’s voice echoed in the silent room, carrying a bone-chilling coldness.
"Recommendation: Deny claim."
"Execution strategy: Reject application on the grounds of experimental therapy. If client sues, initiate delay tactics until..."
Davis snatched the document from Number Two’s hand and read it again.
His breathing grew ragged. The rational compromise he had just managed to build shattered in an instant.
...until the client’s death.
Those were the words not written in the document, but it was a subtext everyone could understand.
"My God..."
Juror Number Nine, the old woman, clutched her chest, her face ashen.
The room fell into a dead silence.
A silence even more oppressive and heavy than before.
Number Four’s face changed too. He tried to explain, "This... this is just a cost-benefit analysis. It’s standard for corporate decision-making..."
"To hell with your cost-benefit analysis!"
Davis slammed the document onto the table.
"This reminds me of the Ford Pinto case."
Davis’s eyes were red with fury—the reaction of a decent person with a conscience pushed to their absolute limit.
"In the seventies, the Ford Motor Company produced a small car called the Pinto. They found that its fuel tank had a design flaw; it would explode and catch fire if it was rear-ended."
"They knew people would die."
"But their actuaries did the math: recalling all the cars to reinforce the fuel tank would cost eleven dollars per car, for a total cost of one hundred and thirty million."
"But compensating the people who burned to death would only cost two hundred thousand per life, for a total cost of less than fifty million."
"So they chose not to issue a recall."
"They chose to let the cars keep exploding, to let people keep burning to death."
Davis pointed at the document, his finger pressing so hard it nearly tore through the paper.
"This isn’t business logic, Number Four."
"This is premeditated murder."
"The only difference is that Ford used a fuel tank, and Arthur Vance used an Excel spreadsheet."
"He knew that surgery could save a life. He knew that the patient would die without treatment."
"But he did the math and decided that paying compensation for a dead person was cheaper than paying to keep them alive."
"So he signed his name."
"He killed a man to save the two-hundred-thousand-dollar difference."
Davis stood up, his gaze like a torch, sweeping over everyone present.
"Luigi Randall fired a gun and killed one person."
"But Arthur Vance? He sat in his leather chair, sipped his coffee, moved his fingers, and killed thousands."
"Tell me, who is the bigger criminal?"
"Tell me, if we find Luigi guilty, aren’t we just telling the world that as long as you’re rich enough, as long as you kill people with a spreadsheet, you’re innocent?"
His words swept through the entire deliberation room.
The jurors, who had been ready to sign, go home, and forget everything, were once again pinned to their seats.
The interrogation of one’s conscience was far more inescapable than the letter of the law.
Juror Number Six, the construction worker with calloused hands, had been sitting there the whole time.
His name was Oscar. He wasn’t the type to shout. He was an honest man who just did his jobs. Even if a foreman shorted his pay, he’d just go home and quietly drink a couple of extra beers.
But now, he was unusually quiet.
He reached out and took the document.
His fingers were rough, and the white of spackling paste still remained unwashed from under his nails.
He squinted, struggling to read the fine print.
Cost of denial: fifty thousand dollars.
Oscar was a construction worker.
He’d been in construction his whole life, and he believed in doing things with a conscience.
You paint a wall three times. You level a floor before laying it. When you take someone’s money, you do a beautiful job for them.
These were the rules his father had taught him, the principles he lived and worked by.
But the insurance company took the premiums and promised coverage, only to use this kind of despicable calculation to welch on their promise when a client’s life was on the line.
This was an insult to everyone who earned an honest living.
It was telling him that honest people deserve to die, that honest people deserve to be cheated.
Oscar’s brow furrowed deeply, the wrinkles on his forehead like carved lines.
His hands were shaking—from anger, but also from the bleak feeling of being deceived.
"Sons of bitches."
Oscar cursed under his breath. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a chilling ferocity.
He threw the document on the table and looked up at Davis.
"You’re right, Number Eight."
Oscar’s voice had the characteristic roughness of a working-class man.
"If this is true..."
"Then that shot Luigi fired... he went easy on him."
The tables had turned once again.
The solid block of ice that had just frozen over was shattered by that single line of fine print, leaving a gaping hole.
"Everyone."
Davis sat down again.
"We can’t just sign this."
"If we send Luigi to prison like this, then we’re accomplices."
"We’d be helping those Demons who sit in their offices calculating the cost of human lives, helping them get rid of the only person who dared to fight back."
"This isn’t justice."
"This is complicity."
Number Four opened his mouth to object, but seeing the furious gazes all around him, he ultimately shut it.
In this room, at four in the morning.
The trial had begun anew.