Escaped again!!

This will probably come as no surprise to those of you who know me, but I escaped serving on a jury again today. This is the second time that I have been summoned to appear and then been dismissed by either the prosecutor or the defense attorney. I have no idea who asked for my dismissal or why I was dismissed in either case. But, I will be nice enough to tell you what I did in both instances that may have led to my dismissals in case you ever find yourself being summoned for jury duty. Before I start I would like to state for the record that I do believe it is every American's civil duty to serve on a jury at some point in their lives. I hope to someday serve on a jury and do my part, I've just decided that I'm not ready to do my civil duty quite yet.

Case #1

I was called for jury duty in 1999. I don't remember all the details, but I do know that it was a check fraud case. I didn't know anything about the case before arriving at the courthouse. In this particular case I decided to make myself visually unappealing. I accomplished this by not bathing for two days prior to my jury date. Then, I wore a pair of dirty jeans complete with dirt and grass stains on them. I topped off the look by wearing a Confederate Railroad T-shirt that was emblazoned with a giant confederate flag across the chest. Once I was in the jury box for the voir dire I incessantly tapped my foot and rocked my body forward and backward like I was sitting in a rocking chair. I answered all the questions truthfully, but I took my own sweet time doing it. I was also sure to use as much of a southern drawl as I was capable of mustering. I was living well north of the Mason-Dixon line at the time. Almost everybody that lives in the North thinks you are an idiot if you have a southern accent. I was one of the first potential jurors dismissed that day.

Case #2

I was actually dismissed this morning for this one. This time I knew ahead of time that it was murder trial involving a wife who shot her husband. I'm not going to get into any details of the case, but it happened in my hometown and I was very familiar with the details that had been released by the media. I wouldn't have minded serving on a jury, but I did not want to serve on this one. So, I decided to try to get dismissed again. I'm a bit older than the last time I was summoned and I didn't think I could pull off the dirty hillbilly act again. So, this time I decided to go with the inattentive undecided over thinker. When I was called down to the jury box for voir dire I was careful to look really confused. I knew exactly where I was supposed to be seated because the bailiff had just explained it to everybody in the room, but I proceeded to walk up there and sit in the wrong seat. The bailiff caught it and informed me that I needed to sit in the assigned seat. I apologized and said I didn't hear her tell us where to sit. This was a lie, but they hadn't sworn me in yet. Once I was swore in, I passed my time by staring at every detail in the room. I looked at the carpet, the ceiling, and the walls. I looked everywhere but at the lawyer who was asking my fellow jurors questions. I was listening to everything that was said, but I was pretending to be completely disinterested in the whole process. The first time I was asked a question by the prosecutor I just sat there and stared at the far wall like I hadn't heard a thing the man had said. I waited for him to repeat my name before I looked in his direction and then I politely asked him to repeat the question. His question required a very simple yes or no response, but I rambled on for about 45 seconds without actually saying yes or no. Instead, I gave him a firm, "I'm pretty sure." Then when he was about to move on I asked him if I could change my answer. I continued "not paying attention" and never directly answering a question for the next 30 minutes through both the prosecutor and the defense attorney's questions. Not surprisingly, I was again dismissed. I figured neither side wanted to have a guy on the jury who wasn't capable of paying attention or following directions.

I'm not saying that my appearance or behavior got me out of jury duty either time, I'm just telling you what happened on both of those days. As far as I'm concerned, I didn't break the law in either case. I would have served on either jury if I had been selected. I didn't lie under oath or make up excuses why I couldn't serve. I showed up and let the system decide whether I would serve, or not. It worked for me and it may work for you too.