Text 10075, 100 rader
Skriven 2007-01-13 11:10:20 av Joseph DeMartino (13495.babylon5)
  Kommentar till text 10059 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (13479.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Shades of "12 Angry Men (1957)"
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John W. Kennedy wrote:

> In my experience, all that is necessary to fail voir dire is to speak
> in complete sentences and carefully to make nice distinctions; any
> lawyer that's relying on his ability to confuse the jury (and there's
> always at least one) will panic at the thought of a juror who is so
> unreasonable as to employ reason in full public view. But unless you
> are in a one-day/one-trial jurisdiction, that won't help.

And in my experience this is utter bunk.  As with everything else in
life, context is all.   I was once empanelled on a jury in a civil case
involving an intellectual property dispute bewteen two former business
partners.  I thought that I'd be bounced in a hot second for the sort
of reasons you indicated - I work in computers, a technical field
related to the invention in the dispute, at the time I was working for
a *law firm* and had sometimes babysat laptops and presentation
equipment during trials in that very courthouse, and so had a
better-than-TV familarity with trial procedure, and the firm itself had
a big intellectual property practice and even as a techie you pick up
some stuff by sheer osmosis hanging around such a place.  None of that
made a difference to the lawyers.  As it turns out both sides *wanted*
people who understood the technical issues, contracts and running a
businesses, because each side was confident in its case.  Even when the
trial started and I notified the judge that I had once worked for a
company owned by the plaintiff's brother - and left on bad terms - I
was kept on.  The plaintiff hadn't been involved in the brother's
business, I had never met or even seen him before (but the name and a
strong family resemblance tipped me off when we were first brought into
court and saw the principles for the first time) and I had to answer
honestly that I didn't think my previous dealings with his brother
would prejudice my consideration of the case.  I just didn't expect his
lawyer to *believe* me. <g>

I ended up being elected foreman of the jury and the trial lasted a
*month*.

The first day of our trial a guy I know slightly came up to me in the
cafeteria and asked if he could get a ride home that night.  He had
just been selected as an alternate in a fatal hit-and-run.  I didn't
find out the details of his case until later, but it turned out to have
involved a drunk driver.  The reason this guy needed a ride home that
night was that his planned ride had to work a double shift and he
himself could not drive.  He was on probation for DUI, in court-ordered
rehab and his license was suspended!   The best part was that I saw him
later in the day when we were on a break and he told me he had found
another ride and would be leaving in a few minutes because the trial
was *over*.  So a fatal accident was adjudicated in his courtroom in
less than a day, and I still had 29 days to go.  <g>

This was about 10 years ago, and it was also basically the first time I
had been summoned for jury duty even though, like Amy, I have been
registered to vote since I turned 18 and have gotten my new driver's
licenses and car registrations within days of moving to a new state.
(I moved to Florida on a Saturday and spent the following Monday
signing forms in various government buildings - inlcuding the library -
and registering with two different employment agencies.)  I had
actually received my very first just summons about nine months before
the trial, but the date I was to appear was also my first day of work
on my new job at the law firm,  so I had asked for an exemption by
letter and got one.  Was never called in all the years I lived in New
York and Maryland and was only called once since in Florida.  (I spent
the day reading in the jury pool room and was never called for voire
dire.)

I actually did find a way to get off jury duty, but it involves some
risk of detection - with a probable spell in Federal PMITA prison the
consequence - so you might want to risk a being a juror on somebody
*else's* 30 day tiral instead:

Take one plain, white, number 10 envelope, dust with Nutra-Sweet or
Sweet'N'Low, and mail to the attention of a judge at your courthouse.
Mail it from the main post office distribution center closest to the
courthouse, so you can be sure it arrives on your first day of jury
service.  Make sure you get there early and sign in.  Then, when they
evacuate the building, your showing up will count as your service and
you'll be off the hook.  Possible downsides include being led by guys
in biohazard spacesuits to a hastily erected decontamination tent in
the courthouse parking lot, stripped naked, showered and issued a robe
while your clothes are being processed and tests run and - as if they
find out you sent the letter - the aforementioned time in Federal PMITA
prison.  <g>

A co-worker of mine learned some of this the other day when an envelope
with white powder reisdue on it was found in the mailroom of the local
courthouse, and the powder generated a false positive on a
rough-and-ready field test for toxins and other bio-hazards.  Luckily a
few actual mailroom employees and one or two other staffers were
actually taken to the decon showers.  My friend just got to go home for
the afternoon and go back to work the next day.  (Meanwhile both news,
law enforcement and public health agency helicopters continued to buzz
our building a few blocks away - shooting pictures, watching for
traffic snarls, taking air samples - as they circled the "incident"
that day and the following day when *another* envelope caused a false
alarm.)

Regards, 

Joe
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