Trial by Jury 1994

In this tense courtroom-driven thriller, crime boss Rusty Pirone Armand Assante stands trial again, and Daniel Graham Gabriel Byrne from the district attorney’s office is determined to lock him away. The stakes are high, the pressure is mounting, and the path to a verdict teeters on a single fragile thread of truth and manipulation.

To swing the case, Tommy Vesey [William Hurt] is dispatched, a burned-out former cop who knows how to bend the system to Pirone’s will. Vesey quickly realizes that a hung jury would mean an acquittal, so he launches a calculated effort to study each juror and identify leverage. When direct blackmail proves unreliable, he pivots to finding a juror who can be made to cooperate. He fixates on Valerie Alston [Joanne Whalley], a single mother who seems to hold enough influence and obedience to tilt the room, and he warns her in no uncertain terms that the Pirone family will harm her son and elderly father if she resists.

Meanwhile, Graham’s key witness dies before taking the stand, forcing investigator John Boyle [Ed Lauter] to scramble for another path to bring Rusty to justice. The first to testify is Hughie Bonner [Mike Starr], a former henchman whose testimony casts Rusty at the center of the city’s criminal web, though it is easily challenged when Rusty’s lawyer Leo Greco [Richard Portnow] highlights Bonner’s own criminal past and plea deals. The defense casts doubt on the reliability of the testimony, narrowing the impact of the opening statements.

With few viable options left, Graham and Boyle press Johnny Verona [Joe Santos], Rusty’s uncle, to testify. They uncover video evidence showing Johnny in a compromising moment with another inmate, suggesting Johnny’s vulnerability and giving them a strategic lever. Johnny finally agrees to testify, tying Rusty to the murders and appearing to seal the gangster’s fate in the eyes of the jury.

Valerie makes repeated attempts to escape Vesey’s grip, but each effort is thwarted as Vesey remains determined to shield her from the Pirone family’s reach. Rusty, relentless in his pursuit of control, breaks into her apartment and threatens Valerie and her family, leaving her with an increasingly narrow set of choices.

As the jury prepares to deliberate, eleven jurors vote guilty while Valerie holds out, a move that sparks anger and concern among the others who fear the case could crumble. She uses her position to probe Graham’s presentation, highlighting perceived gaps and nudging jurors to question the strength of the prosecution’s narrative. One by one, three jurors decide to vote with her, reshaping the balance of the room and complicating the pursuit of justice.

Pirone goes free. Graham, furious and stung by what he views as a breakdown of an open-and-shut case, has Boyle reinterview every juror who found Rusty not guilty. The jurors reveal that Valerie’s influence played a decisive role in their reconsideration, and Graham begins to suspect that Valerie may have been manipulated, though she denies any coordinated scheming.

Pirone, now wary that Valerie could turn on him, orders Vesey and his thugs to keep her under closer watch. Yet Vesey, who has begun to feel protective toward the woman, finds himself navigating a dangerous loyalties between the man who saved him from ruin and the woman who could topple them both. Rusty, sensing risk, orders a renewed threat when Graham is seen leaving Valerie’s apartment.

Valerie is kidnapped in broad daylight and driven off in a car trunk, triggering a tense chase. Vesey pursues the abductors, and a gunfight erupts in which Vesey manages to wound the attackers but is mortally wounded himself. Before dying, he warns Valerie that the Pirone family will not let her live and urges her to resolve things with Rusty directly.

With nowhere else to turn, Valerie decides to employ the very skills she used during the trial. Dressed in a vintage dress, she infiltrates Rusty’s lair and attempts to seduce him as a strategic ruse. Rusty seems swayed but suddenly turns deadly, and Valerie responds with an ice pick, killing him and making a narrow escape back to her life.

In the aftermath, Boyle identifies Vesey’s body among the gang’s casualties and notes that Rusty has vanished. Graham confronts Valerie at her son’s football game, not wearing a wire, seeking to understand how someone with a good heart could help a violent man. Valerie gives a restrained answer, hinting that her actions were motivated by a need to protect her family and those she loves, leaving the exact motives open to interpretation while underscoring a hard-won resolve to survive.