| Since becoming D.A., Jessica's most notable cases were both, ultimately, failures: winning a conviction in Margo Hughes' trial for the murder of Alec Wallace (when she was, in fact, innocent), and losing in Craig Montgomery's attempted murder trial (when the real culprit, Owen Dever, confessed in open court).
In August 2001, Duncan returned to town, briefly, while tracking down their daughter, Bonnie, who had run away after discovering her fiancé (the Duke of Glasgow) having an affair. It was clear that Bonnie had become extremely spoiled while living in Europe, so Jessica and Duncan agreed to have Bonnie stay with Jessica for the rest of the year, and forced her to get a job. After looking at several options, Jessica was able to get Bonnie a job at Java Underground, and eventually supported her when she decided to give modeling a whirl for the BRO fashion show. In the aftermath of Bonnie’s near-wedding to Ian MacLaren, it was discovered that Jessica is descended from Emmanuel, Duke of Glasgow from centuries ago. No one in her family became duke or duchess because they were only Scots from one side. Bonnie is the real heir since she is Scottish from both sides and has royal blood, too.
Jessica finally prosecuted Barbara’s conspiracy/kidnapping trial, but lost abysmally to Marshall Travers, who secured a mistrial. Though she hated Marshall for his courtroom antics and political ploys, Jessica had a tawdry affair with him while their campaign for D.A. was ongoing. Having found out about Bonnie and Paul’s bugging of Marshall’s room, Jessica conceded the election before polls even closed.
Paul blackmailed Jessica over her affair with Marshall in an attempt to have her get info on James’s whereabouts to lead to his capture. Marshall became D.A. and dropped all pending charges against James. Ben found out about Jessica’s affair with Marshall when Marshall played Paul’s surveillance tape for him. He left Jessica. Paul was framed for Brandy Taylor’s murder and out of guilt, Jessica represented Paul in court opposite the new D.A., Marshall. Jessica found out that James was blackmailing Marshall to prosecute Paul for Brandy’s murder in exchange for the whereabouts of his 15-year-old daughter. During the trial, Marshall’s conscience got to him and he came clean about wrongly prosecuting Paul and for working with James. In response, James shot Marshall in the head, though Marshall survived and James was sent to maximum-security prison. Ben Harris saved Marshall’s life on the operating table, but accidentally nicked an artery that almost killed Marshall. Though Jessica came to Ben’s defense, she made a deal to help Marshall find his daughter if he dropped all notions of a law suit against Ben. |
