I, the Jury

Jan 30, 20130

W. Bruce Cameron

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008.

Once a year, I am proud to do my civic duty and take the time to go down to the courthouse to try to get out of jury service. Last week, I was not successful, however, even though I informed the judge that I couldn’t serve because I had very important, highly critical stuff to do that I couldn’t precisely identify.

A day of jury service is divided into three parts: waiting for lunch, waiting for lunch to end and waiting for the end of the day. There is no better way that I can think of to verify that an hour is made of 60 minutes — and that each minute is made up of an hour.

It gets so tedious that when a police officer comes into the waiting area, you half hope you’ll be singled out for pepper spray. Instead, he’ll pull a few dozen prospective jurors and lead you all into the courtroom for voir dire, which is a process in which the prosecution and defense do their best to whittle the large group down to the 12 dumbest people in the room.

Voir dire is a French phrase used by judges and lawyers to mean “we went to law school so we understand French and you don’t.” Prospective jurors attempt to answer questions in ways that will convince the judge they should be excused, somehow avoiding obvious perjury, so all the clever people are released, which is how I found myself empanelled.

The questions are pretty standard: Have you ever been the victim of a crime, have you ever been on a jury before, are you aware that your pants are unzipped? (Jury Tip: Don’t answer “yes” to all three questions.) Many jurors respond to the opportunity to “tell us about yourself” with such a long, self-important explanation that eventually the judge will interrupt and say, “OK, I think we’ve got it.”

That’s what happened to me, anyway, which I’m sure irritated the other jurors plenty because I was just getting into “Bruce: The Formative Years, Fourth and Fifth Grade.” They were all glaring at me, disappointed not to hear the full story.

Here’s another Jury Tip: Don’t burst out laughing, even when the surveillance tape shows the defendant throwing a rock at the store window with such force that it bounces off the glass and bonks him on his head.

Apparently, jurors are not supposed to have a sense of humor or ask the judge to run the tape backward for extra giggles.

Also frowned upon is for you to whisper “what a moron!” even though there simply is no other way to describe the fact that the guy picked up the rock and did the exact same thing again.

Luckily, the judge’s admonition was that “jurors are to refrain from making comments,” so he apparently blamed all of us equally, which I felt was fair.

The third time was a charm for the burglar, who stood to the side and threw the rock in such a way as to punch a perfect hole in the glass, 18 inches in diameter and about 9 feet off the ground, doing his crime spree no good whatsoever. He stood there, patting his head wounds, contemplating his handiwork with a perplexed expression.

When his searching gaze brought his face around so that he was looking directly into the camera, the picture offered better resolution than most wedding videos, though as a Jury Tip I probably shouldn’t have murmured, “Well, I’m ready to reach a verdict.” The judge certainly seemed to feel this was the case, anyway. Jury Tip: Those judges can hear everything.

When we did reach a verdict, we found the defendant guilty of the lesser charge of malicious destruction of property while under the influence of criminal stupidity. We decided that we couldn’t convict someone of breaking and entering if all he did was break some glass, plus his own head.

The judge dismissed us, saying (a) no, I couldn’t have a copy of the tape for YouTube and (b) we were not to speak about the case to anyone.

Honoring his instructions, I have kept the entire matter a secret.

Unless you count this column.

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his Website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com.