I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my father and brother for giving me an iron-clad way to get out of jury duty. And although I would never commit perjury, I only need to slightly exaggerate our family dynamics in order to make sure it works every single time. When they’re selecting jurors and I’m called up to answer the judge’s questions in front of the prosecutor and the defense, I always find myself in a conversation very much like this one:
JUDGE: Now here’s a very important question, Mr. Howard. Do you have any lawyers in your immediate family?
ME: Why, yes. My brother is a partner at a firm in the city, and my father was a social security lawyer for many years.
JUDGE: I see. And do you talk about law with them?
ME: Oh yes, all the time. We discuss all sorts of cases, such as Plessy v. Roe, which had an eerie similarity to the case that’s about to be tried in this very courtroom--if you ignore the fact that it wasn’t about a civil lawsuit but rather about illegal rutabagas being smuggled into Honduras.
JUDGE: Okay, and do you--
ME: And after we’re all done talking about famous legal cases over the dinner table, we discuss old Matlock episodes. And if there’s any time after that, we talk about being on jury duty and how we wouldn’t be easily swayed be either the prosecutor or the defense because we could reason rings around both of them.
JUDGE: What I need to know is whether you can remain impartial even though you--
ME: Also, I page through LSAT study guides just for fun. And I’m friends with Antonin Scalia on MySpace. I often ask him for special “pics” of himself.
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, could you please make him shut up?
ME: Objection! The prosecutor is badgering me.
JUDGE: You’re not actually allowed to say that.
ME: Listen, I know my rights. I’ll writ your habeas corpus all over your ipso facto until you’re nothing but a deux ex machina.
JUDGE: Prosecution, do you want to keep this juror?
PROSECUTOR: God no.
JUDGE: Defense?
DEFENSE: I’ve only known him for a few minutes, but I’ve really grown to hate him.
JUDGE: Mr. Howard, you’re not only excused from the jury pool, but I order you to get the hell out of here.
ME: No, you’re out of order. This whole court is out of--
JUDGE: Bailiff, feel free to use the mace.
On the way out of the courthouse, I text my co-workers back at the office: “they’re still picking jurors...won’t know until later this afternoon if i can get away.” And then I go home and watch Robot Chicken.
It’s not as though I’m unwilling to do my civic duty. It’s just that I was always picked last for dodgeball in elementary school, so I see this as the universe’s way of giving me karmic redress.
Funny.
My dad loved jury duty and sitting in judgment. When I was in law school he talked to me constantly about a big case he sat through as a juror. Rest his soul and all, but it sounded really boring even thought it was a death penalty case for a drug addict low-life who killed his own grandmother.
I’ve never even been voir dired, only called to sit around waiting to get picked.
Judge: Do you know anybody involved in the case on a personal basis?
Me: The District Attorney’s representative has been a customer at my shop and has attended a few events that I have produced. I have sat on his porch chatting with him on a few evenings.
Judge: Well, despite liking Mr ***, do you feel there’s any reason that you couldn’t be impartial in this case?
Me: I never said I liked him.
Crowd: *laughs*
Judge: Juror is dismissed.
A friend of mine was called up the other week. He spent hours preparing himself by dressing up as emo as possible, hoping that would get him dismissed. In actual fact it only led to an embarrassing incident when one of the other potential jurors was a high-ranking executive from Macquarie Bank, who recognised him.
In the end, after being told who was involved in the case, they were asked to say if they would be prejudiced in any way, and he put up his hand and they let him go. Easy.
You’ve had your karmic balance restored. Next time you get called up, now, you must go, lest the karma come back the next day and drop a planeload of dodgeballs on you.
--david
“I can tell a guy is guilty just by lookin’ at him.”
That’s always worked for me.
Well.
I’m starting to feel quite jealous that I haven’t even been called once.
And I never watched one episode of Matlock.
That’s actually a lie. No wonder they haven’t called me.
Judge: Will you follow the law as I explain it to you?
Me: Not if it conflicts with my conscience.
Gets me off most of the time.
Awesome post. Laughed. Cried. It was better than Cats. I’ll be back—that’s kind of a threat.
Between your posts and the suggestions in comments, it looks like I’ll never do jury time!
I guess I could also throw in something about having been immersed in German law for too long, but that could get way to un-PC way too fast ...