Feminism on Trial

During recess, Ginny and her entourage went to a nearby diner to have lunch, anticipating a long jury deliberation. Instead, less than two hours after the jury retired to deliberate, a reporter rushed over to them and announced that the jury was coming back into the courtroom. They had a verdict.

Ginny and her group hustled back to the courthouse and she and her lawyers sat at the defense table. When everyone was seated, Judge Burns asked the foreman of the jury if they had a verdict and the answer was affirmative. "Will you hand it to the clerk, please?" the judge requested. The clerk took a slip of paper from the foreman and delivered it to Burns. He looked at the piece of paper, then looked at Ginny as he read the verdict.

"We the jury find the defendant, Virginia Foat, not guilty."

Ginny slumped into her chair, relieved. Bedlam broke out in the courtroom and she was hugged by everyone from her attorneys to her family members to her friends. Jurors came up to her with their lunch napkins and asked for her autograph. Outside in the hallway cameras flashed and there were more congratulations and cheers. Ginny was free.

She ended her book with the verdict, saying, "The jury had made its judgment in one hour and fifty minutes, and I, after an agony of years, had made mine: Ginny Foat is not guilty."

Ginny Foat