Presumed Innocent

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 10

Part 1, Chapter 11-Part 2, Chapter 20

Part 2, Chapters 21-30

Part 2, Chapter 31-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Performance’s Role in Courtroom Strategy

In Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow delves into the routines, habits, and strategies of criminal lawyers, both prosecution and defense. He illustrates how trying a case requires an all-encompassing strategy, in and out of the courtroom. An essential part of this strategy is performance, particularly in the courtroom. Turow highlights this aspect of legal strategy with the various lawyers’ trial performances throughout the novel.

Turow highlights the performance aspect of legal strategy by immediately centering it in the narrative. The opening lines of the Prologue address performance directly, bringing it to prominence. Rusty reflects on advice from his mentor, who told him, “You must always point, Rusty” (3). Turow also highlights performance’s importance with the fact that Rusty was told so “the day [he] started in the office […] and John White brought [him] up to watch the first jury trial [he]’d ever seen” (3). Rusty’s admission that performance is the key to a successful legal strategy sets the scene for the courtroom drama to follow, in which the strategies of both the defense and the prosecution depend on the performance element.

After establishing performance as crucial to a successful legal strategy, Turow illustrates how lawyers put performance into practice at Rusty’s trial. Because Rusty is the defendant, he has time to observe and pay “close attention” to the lawyer’s performances. Assessing the lawyer’s performances is another way for Rusty to distance himself from the proceedings; as he reflects, “Sitting in court, I actually forget at certain moments who is on trial” (263), allowing him to step into the role of observer. He notes that the most successful lawyers have dramatic charisma, like Nico and Sandy. Sandy uses his dapper appearance to make an impression on juries while carefully developing his strategies, such as “rivalry for power as a theme” (257). However, beyond appearance, Turow also shows that Sandy’s perceptiveness is a key part of his courtroom strategy. Sandy’s ability to read people deeply connects with his focus on understanding their character rather than just facts, allowing him to shape his performance to suit each situation. In addition, Rusty is forced to admit that however much he dislikes Nico, his “most arresting aspect has always been the brassy and indiscriminate sincerity” (13). He also reflects on the other lawyers he knows: The secret to Raymond’s success is that he is a “consummate public man, a speaker, a presence” (17). Even Carolyn, Rusty says, “liked to go and carry the banner. She enjoyed the limelight. But she was a good prosecutor. And damn tough” (31). Yet, through his own observations and those of others like Sandy, Rusty begins to recognize that successful performances require an understanding of human complexity rather than just rehearsed words.

The Effect of Parenting on Adult Children

In Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow probes the relationships between children and their parents through Rusty’s relationships with his parents, his wife, and even his boss Raymond and his lover Carolyn.

The relationship that shaped Rusty most prominently is with his father. His father was traumatized himself “first in the Nazi labor camps, and the Allied DP camps after the liberation” (76). Rusty, who still dreams of his father, says, “If I were to paint my father, he would have a gargoyle’s face and a dragon’s scaled heart. The channels of his emotions were too intricately wound upon themselves, too clotted, strangulated, crowded with spite to admit any feeling for a child” (75). His father’s deep anger, explosive violence, and unapproachable distance left Rusty both fearing him and seeking his approval. Although Rusty never bridged the distance with his father, he finds a father figure in Raymond and is utterly loyal to him for 12 years. When Raymond loses the election, Rusty “sit[s] by Raymond on the footstool of the easy chair he is occupying” (132). His subservient position indicates his fealty to Raymond. It also raises a direct connection to Rusty’s father when he remembers, in the same paragraph, watching television with his father: “I always asked his permission before taking a place next to him on the divan. They were the warmest moments that we had” (132). The careful way that Rusty approaches his father directly connects, in his mind, to the way he approaches his relationship with Raymond. It also directly connects to the way he deals with his own son Nat—Rusty’s greatest fear is that he will be a father like his own. This fear of repeating his father’s mistakes drives Rusty’s obsession with character and his attempt to control Nat’s path, ultimately revealing how profoundly his father’s influence has shaped him.

Rusty’s relationship with his mother also shapes his relationships in his adult life, specifically with both Barbara and Carolyn. When he was younger, his mother was isolated, “phobic about venturing beyond our apartment building or shop […] and who from the time [he] was eight, sent [him] to the market so she could avoid leaving the house” (224). Later, he recognizes that Barbara is “like [his] mother, when she was alive, […] largely a willing captive within the walls of her own home” (40). This dynamic influences the distance between him and Barbara, as Rusty perceives echoes of his mother’s limitations in his wife, fostering both compassion and resentment. In addition, Barbara’s relationship with Nat echoes Rusty’s relationship with his own mother. Even Rusty’s infatuation with Carolyn is based on his relationship with his mother: She only becomes overwhelmingly attractive to him, to the point where he engages in an affair, after she is motherly and nurturing to Wendell, the young boy in the McGaffen case.

Turow uses the character of Rusty to explore the powerful way that a child’s relationship with his parents resonates in his adult life. By the end of the novel, Rusty’s reflections on his relationship with Nat show a deep-seated fear of repeating the mistakes of his parents, indicating how formative these early influences have been on his self-perception.

The Connection Between Law and Politics

In Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow shows how politics and law are intertwined through his portrayal of the Kindle County justice system. Rusty disparages the politics, even as he admits they are an essential part of success as a prosecutor, saying, “The Medici did not live in a world fuller of intrigue” (97). The prosecuting attorney of Kindle County is an elected position, and Turow highlights the unavoidability of politics by setting the novel during the election to explore the political maneuvering between Nico and Raymond.

Raymond has been a prosecuting attorney for 12 years and is adept as a political operator. Rusty looks up to Raymond, telling the reader, “I have been a dozen years with him, years full of authentic loyalty and admiration” (10). He is not blind to Raymond’s faults, admitting that “he had his shortcomings as a politician” (17), but asserts that Raymond “is a consummate public man, a speaker, a presence. Balding, growing stout, standing there in his fine blue suit, he broadcasts his anguish and his power like a beaconed emission” (17). This duality in Rusty’s view of Raymond suggests that politics requires a dual nature—projecting confidence and control while dealing with private turmoil and manipulation. After many years, Rusty can read Raymond better than anyone, and he knows when Raymond is faking bonhomie: “He gestures too much; his broad features are always tending toward a smile. His eyes seldom meet those of the person to whom he is speaking. This was how he negotiated with defense lawyers. I’m a great guy, but I just can’t help” (194). Rusty is privy to his real reactions and knows that “[w]hen his visitors left, Raymond would often call them names” (194). When Rusty is charged with Carolyn’s murder, Raymond turns on him, and Rusty has a complete understanding of just how far politics goes with Raymond, reinforcing Rusty’s idea of the “dirty politics” of his profession.

Nico is another character that Rusty has spent a long time observing, as they joined the prosecutor’s office at the same time and came up in the ranks together. As with Raymond, Rusty can see beyond Nico’s politicking, although he admits that Nico is perfect for politics: “Nico has always been shameless in his public conduct. That is one thing that made him ripe for a political career” (9). He notes Nico’s “forceful confidence” and admits that he “cannot help but recognize the carnal appeal of his vitality and how far it is bound to take him” (15). In Rusty’s trial, however, Nico’s customary charisma deserts him, and after he loses the case, Nico pays the cost by being recalled from his position. This downfall reinforces Rusty’s understanding that political appeal is fickle and that those who rely too heavily on it are vulnerable to public backlash. In an ironic twist, Rusty, who claims to have a “thoroughgoing revulsion with what has gone on in the interest of politics” (407), becomes the interim prosecutor. Despite his feelings for politics, Rusty has entered the political realm. His ascent to the interim prosecuting attorney position highlights not only his own adaptability but also the reality that even those who disdain politics must eventually engage with it to navigate the justice system. This development underscores Turow’s commentary on the unavoidable connection between law and politics.