The courtroom was smaller than the ones in movies, less theatrical but somehow more oppressive for it. Rows of wooden benches polished by decades of frightened hands. A judge’s bench raised just enough to remind everyone where power sat. Flags in the corner. A witness stand. A clerk’s desk. A monitor mounted near the front. The whole room carried the kind of gravity that makes even quiet people want to whisper.
Judge William H. Tanner entered a few minutes later.
He was in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, with silver hair, a lined face, and those steady, thoughtful eyes some people have that make children trust them instinctively. He did not smile much, but nothing in him felt cruel. He took his seat, reviewed the file, and looked over the room with the weary focus of a man who had seen enough family damage to stop being surprised by most of it.