Tags
Charles M. Sevilla, Courtroom Humor, Disorder in the Court, Gloria Richard Writes, Humor, Jury Duty, Potty Humor, Voir Dire
This is The Question I Never Asked, and it haunts me.
Why?
Posed as a question, it would have been an opportunity to make a point without risk of wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Your Honor, Would I Be Held in Contempt of Court if I…
I live in a small, bucolic town with a 2010 census of 708 residents. We get together to mingle on a regular basis. Our meetings most often occur in Municipal Court, and involve dispute of traffic tickets.
With a small jury pool and many hard-core criminals lead-footed drivers who don’t know where The Police typically park, it’s difficult to miss these Good Citizen opportunities. Besides, I often want to serve.
“Tea? Crumpets? Tums? Bottle of wine? With or without a straw?”
THE SITUATION
During voir dire, defendant’s attorney, hereinafter referred to as Pompous @$$, droned ad nauseam about the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.
This, before he’d presented a shred of evidence. This, before six hapless happy, model citizens were selected from the entire population of our small town those who didn’t get a note from their doctor responded to the summons.
This, before, during, and after numb bum syndrome caused me to wish I’d brought a seat cushion. Whoopi!
Striding with hands behind back, Pompous @$$ spun on his well-polished heel, scanned to be certain we were awake, and asked…(paraphrasing here)
“If you were asked to render a judgment at this moment, RIGHT NOW(!!!!), how would you have to find the defendant?”
Erm. Stupid for paying you to represent him?
[NOTE TO MODEL CITIZEN IN THE FRONT ROW WHO IS FAR TOO BUSY TO SERVE: Shouting “Guilty!” each time the question is posed makes it a wee bit obvious. Twice would have done it. Twenty times? Overkill. Just an opinion.]
Since I may refer to the individual identified in that parenthetical comment again, and since I want to use the word hereinafter again, I choose to give her a pseudonym.
MODEL CITIZEN IN THE FRONT ROW WHO IS FAR TOO BUSY TO SERVE. Choosing, at random…
Hold on.
Letting the Lotto balls pop into place. We have…
1, 6, 31, 32, 33 and 34.
The Model Citizen in the Front Row who is far too busy to serve will hereinafter be referred to as McFart.
The fact that McFart had the opportunity to shout “Guilty(!)” twenty times speaks to (1) how fond Pompous @$$ was of his own voice, or (2) his desire to one day argue Constitutional Rights in front of the U.S Supreme Court.
Either way, he was delusional.
And, annoying.
And, a pain in my numb bum. And, cocky. And, weasel-like in appearance. And, spittle-prone. And, possibly a scumbag struggling attorney with a payment due on his Mercedes, rendering him in need of useless blather billable hours for court time
All that aside, I would have served.
For him?
Fast-acting colonoscopy prep medication.
For McFart? The aforementioned Whoopi Cushion.
So, here is The Question I Never Asked with imagined results:
Hand in air me: Your Honor, would I be held in contempt of court if I said I am unable to render a fair and impartial verdict because the defendant’s attorney, Pompous @$$, is a time suck, and does not deserve to win this or any other case?
His Honor: Yes. And, please refrain from using suck and @$$ in this courtroom.
Hand in lap me: OK. Never mind, then. Suck @$$ question withdrawn.
SEGUE TO LOO-BRARY SNARK
[This Segue Sentence Space, hereinafter referred to as $$$, intentionally left blank. Why? Because I cannot think of something to put in $$$]
There is a reason I spend more time in my Loo-brary after I receive the monthly Reader’s Digest. I’m working in there.
Nooooo.
It’s not all piddle-fart and you know time. Brushing my teeth, people! Decorating my face.
Staid and proper young women do not discuss you know.
Unfortunately, I am none of those.
During these extended Loo-Brary visits, I conduct research for my glob.
I have a Ziploc baggie *somewhere* labeled Blog Fodder. It contains pages torn from Reader’s Digest. All of those pages contain snippets of nonsense intellectual data.
[*When one, hereinafter referred to as Ditz, has her home on the market, showings yield an opportunity for Ditz to freak out find creative places to store anything left on her desk. Ditz’s home is currently its own lost & not-yet-found department.]
I recently discovered a book on the shelves in The Hubster’s Study that negates the need to rip pages from Readers Digest. The title of this awe-snarky-some tome?
DISORDER IN THE COURT, Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History (Charles M. Sevilla, and Illustrated by Lee Lorenz). Click on the book title if you want to own a copy of this book. BONUS and ACK! There are other compilations by this same author and I did not plan to take my pal, Pay, for a ride to The Amazon today.
The forward alone is worth the price of this book. Charles Sevilla (I just read) has written a humor column titled Great Moments in Courtroom History for over twelve years for the Forum and Champion. The snippets contained in his collection are true stories collected by reading courtroom transcripts, and through submissions from his fans.
Charles Sevilla kindly provides an asterisk for those excerpts that are suggestive, raunchy, or naughty. That’s a big time saver for me. Thanks, Charles.
Following is one I howled over whilst doing Loo-Brary Research. From Disorder in the Court:
SLIP OF THE TONGUE
(Submitted by David Call, San Bernadino)
Mr. B: I object to that
Mrs. T: This is my argument.
Mr. B: I have to object to this. This is a misstatement of the law. I won’t interrupt any more other than to ask for an opportunity to tell you what I believe is correct.
Mrs. T: Your Honor, I sat on my tongue until it’s three inches longer during Mr. B.’s argument; and I am going to sit on his tongue in a minute if the court will allow me to do so. Well, no. I retract that statement. Strike that.
Mr. B: I hope no one provides a transcript of that to my wife.
PROSPECTIVE COMMENTER VOIR DIRE
Is it just me, or did that true courtroom mishap make you laugh-out-loud?
Do you have your own tales about jury duty? Did you ever serve on a jury? What happens if you’re on a jury and have to tinkle between recesses? These are all important questions, worthy of a thought-provoking comment.
You know how much I love to play in comments. I’ll be in my Loo-brary making Whoopi Cushion noises while I wait.
YIKES! I retract that statement. Move to strike from the transcript. And, buy this book. You, too, will skip to the Loo.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The More Cowbell (now in my possession) adventures have begun. Next week? The first of several More Cowbell Chronicles. Jenny Hansen’s More Cowbell is clanging belles and balls in Texas. BONUS! Jenny has potty humor up today. Click that link to read, laugh, and comment. Me? I’ll comment first, then steal her picture for this post.
Gloria Richard 
Lawyer: “How old is your son, the one living with you?”
Witness: “Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.”
Lawyer: “How long has he lived with you?”
Witness: “Forty-five years.”
Lawyer: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for breathing?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “How can you be so sure, Doctor?”
Witness: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
Lawyer: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
Witness: “Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”
And the best one:
Lawyer: “How long have you been a French Canadian?”
Thanks for the post, I needed that laugh!
Thanks for your own tales from the courtroom, Carole.
I’m sitting here snorting (yes, I snort when I break into uncontrolled and sudden laugher.)
BWAHAHAHAHA! on the “how long have you been a French Canadian?” Why do I think you, or one of your loved ones (hereinafter referred to as “family”,) had this question posed by a bureaucrat?
Gloria, your nuts. And I mean that in the nicest possible sense 😉
I’ve been called as a potential jouror several times, but only made it to the court room on one occassion. Apparently someone turned right on red without stopping. Henious.
Courtrooms do lend themselves to humor though. I think it gets pent up after all that seriousness.
Cheers!
I’m debating what the nicest possible sense of nuts might be. If my debate yields a less than complimentary answer, your adventures with me and More Cowbell will be ratcheted up a notch.
I started the adventures without you, by the way. Stop by next week for the #More Cowbell inaugural post.
ERM, Nigel?
Missed this opportunity the first go-’round. I could fix the “your nuts” typo, or I could say “I don’t have any of those.”
Which would your prefer?
Gloria, he means “nuts” in the sense of “No Unturned Tricks of Snark,” right Nigel?! (He’s basically calling you a Snark Ho’…always a great thing to be.)
🙂
Hi Gloria. That made me laugh. I am frequently called to jury duty and have never sat for a trial. I honestly answer the questionnaire that I am sent each time. Having been a witness to multiple violent crimes and my low opinion of our legal system apparently keep me from being selected. I do not purposely answer in a way that will prevent me from being selected. I strongly believe that every accused has the right to a jury. A legal system with public participation is problematic. I legal system without public participation is North Korea.
Amen to that, Holmes. Every accused has the right to what I would want for myself, or those I know. A fair trial without selective admission of evidence, and courtroom histrionics. Therein lies my contempt for our court system. But, I agree. Better a flawed system than none at all.
I also answer my questionnaires honestly, but have only served on one jury. It was in this municipal court, but not this particular case.
The larger trials are held in Tarrant County Courthouse, and the fact that my husband is a retired Police Officer usually knocks me out of the game. I’d love to serve on a jury in a criminal trial. I’d sooner color my eyes with a purple Sharpie than serve on a civil trial.
In municipal court, there are two things the jury decides. Guilt or innocence, and whether the punishment fits the crime. In the jury I chaired (because I used the restroom before we began deliberations, and they voted for me while I was gone), we found the defendant guilty, but lowered his fine from $200 to $25
Even the ADA recommended we lower the fine.
The defendant didn’t appear to have a lot of money, had car problems after dropping his family at church, pulled off the highway en route to the pharmacy for medication for his son, and was clocked at 79 in a 65 MPH zone when he merged back into traffic. He was speeding, irrefutable.
Thanks for the visit and for that INFORMATIVE summary of the Kenya Mall Massacre. I’ll be back to add the link so readers who see this comment can link over to read it.
I’ve been called in for jury duty twice so far… In that time, I’ve actually come close to serving both times (the second for a double murder with the death penalty on the table). I should’ve done what my friend (yes, turned out I had a friend who also got stuck in jury duty during that time) did. When the lawyers asked him if he felt the death penalty was always the answer he said yes. LOL! Unfortunately, I was honest and said not always. What I think finally knocked me out of the running was when I said that the extenuating circumstances better be a lot more (and better) than “my childhood made me do it”. Don’t think the defense attorney liked that a lot of the other jurors were listening and nodding their heads….but I was the only one who spoke up. Or it could’ve been the fact that I vaguely remembered the case but couldn’t place how I’d heard about it.
The first time I finally got taken out because it was a civil dispute between a young lady who’d been in a car accident and an insurance company (and their 6 lawyers) because the insurance company was trying not to pay. I got kicked out at the same time as the nurses, insurance investigator and police officers….guess the fact that my brother was hit and killed in a bicycle v. MVA and my mom sued might have had something to do with it.
Back in my Corporate America days, I dreaded the thought of being forced to leave projects unfinished to serve on an extended trial. Now? I think it would be an interesting peek into our criminal justice system.
As I told Holmes, they’ll never pick me for a criminal trial because of my husband’s status as a retired police officer. Bummer. There are a few high-profile cases that would not have . ended with an acquittal if I had been on that jury.
Yeah. All the family in the medically related world and my outspokenness tend to get me knocked out, too. I knew the States Attorney liked me. She’d seen well over 600 people and remembered my name without having to consult her seating chart/map. LOL!
Laughing, Kitt. Yes, I’m certain the States Attorney would love to have you on the jury panel. Unfortunately, defense attorneys across the state have your picture posted on their bulletin boards — with a red circle and a diagonal line.
Oh! Oh! During one voir dire (for extended disability), the plaintiff’s attorney said his client’s case had been turned down by six attorneys before she finally found him to represent her. Even the judge went wide-eyed and cautioned him.
He thought this made him sound like a nice person? He thought she believed that strongly in her right to continued long-term disability?
Whaaat? The message I got is that she was looking for a loophole to jump through, and into fuzzy slippers with PJs for the rest of her life.
Wow! So that attorney is a genius…LOL! With my first case it was the opposite. Geico doing their best to browbeat/bully this little 23 year old girl and her attorney so that they wouldn’t have to pay her medical bills and lost wages.
The question was posed…”Do you have a problem with the fact that we have all these attorneys on this side and it’s just she and her one attorney on the other?”
Yes. I raised my hand. I told them it screamed of bullying and that I hoped that when my mom sued the lady’s insurance company after she hit and killed my brother that she didn’t also have to compound her grief with a scenario like the one I was witnessing. 😡 They told me they were sorry, I was brave…and dismissed. Go figure.
(Thanks for the condolences.)
And, Kitt. I am SO sorry about your brother. I failed to mention that in my original answer. How truly sad.
WOOT! She’s at it again. 🙂
I’m sure they see you coming on those juries, I can see your eyebrows going up, and down. Your (discreet) impatient sighs, and all the little lip twitches that make those lawyers send you home. Gloria, you would have made a fantastic trial attorney. Jurors would have lined up to listen to the snark!
Glad to see you out and about and blogging, if not stuck in the loo-brary!
Me? An attorney?
Perish the thought! They’d surely discover my creatively sneaky side and I’d end up whiling away quality time getting to know the prisoners.
I really don’t TRY to get out of jury duty. It’s just that sometimes they ask the dumbest questions or say incredibly stupid things — which causes my hand to go up of its own volition. I dunno’ what I’m going to do about that arm!
I sat on a jury once. Sadly, we were basically trying the accused couple for stupidity. They were ex-felons that (because of their previous crimes) legally could not possess firearms. They *invited* the police into their home who were investigating a nearby crime they had nothing to do with, and had guns and drug paraphernalia in plain view. Of course, they came back with a search warrant.
Ka-Snort!!!!
That one earns a place in the stupid criminals hall of fame. You likely had to stretch out jury deliberations long enough to get lunch on the court’s dime.
Still laughing. What were they thinking. Oh! Right! Drug paraphernalia? They obviously weren’t thinking.
Thanks for the LOVE, Gloria!!
*whispers* I have never served on jury duty. (Shhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone.)
Many (a few decades of many) years ago, when I was too young to know it was illegal, I threw a summons away and I’ve never received another one. Since I’m a registered voter, I’ve never figured out why that’s so, but I’m not arguing. They’re probably saving up for when I’m retired.
Not trying to scare you or anything, Jenny, but they might have convicted you in abstentia for your failure to respond to that summons. So, when they run prospective jurors through the selection process, your name gets kicked because there’s an outstanding warrant for your arrest.
Kidding!
It’s more likely they follow More Cowbell and don’t want you out of the blog game.
Blog Love for MORE COWBELL is a no-brainer. Can’t wait to get the first chronicle up next week. I’d do it today, but that would set a precedent I can’t sustain.
See, that first paragraph up there? That’s my fear…. They KNOW who I am. *cues scary music*
I was called for jury duty once. You’d think after making a hundred people sit on a hard bench for 2 days, the polite thing to do would be to pick everyone, but no. I was sent home. Good thing, because their loo was almost as uncomfortable as the courtroom.
Giggled all the way through this post, but my favoUrite line?Fast-acting colonoscopy prep medication. You see, while I may have spent 2 days of my life on the jury duty that never happened, I’ve spent far more in the loo, UN-cramming for bowel exams. =)) =)) =))
Are you perhaps hinting at what you’d like for Christmas, Sherry? Order up! One case of fast-acting colonoscopy prep medication with no colonoscopy to follow.
You can thank me when the gift arrives. If they claim it’s C.O.D., they’re lying.
Maybe.
TWO DAYS????? Thank goodness we’re only called for one day, and sometimes don’t even get picked for prospective juror panels. The only way to make it last longer is to be selected for a jury.
Municipal court is a non-time-suck (except when Pompous @$$ attorneys take the stage). It’s only one morning. Most defendants plead out when they are called out before voir dire and given opportunity to change their plea. When they see the videos of *gasp* turning right on red without stopping, or, the data on the radar gun, they plead guilty and likely get a lowered fine in return.
Most only come because they hope the police officer won’t show up. That’s an automatic acquittal. It hasn’t yet happened. Those dudes are always there.
C.O.D…. Does that refer to the delivery of the prep, or the prep-induced delivery of… you know… in my loo?
Bwa-ha-ha!
KA-SNORT!
Why do I have this visual of you telling the delivery dude to sit down and have a cuppa while you produce the agreed upon barter-in-place-of-cash?
Grab a Ziploc supersize! Tell him it’s for their clinical research.
Dear, dear Gloria ~ Queen of Snark ~ I can actually hear your voice and see those intense, sparkling eyes of yours when I read any post or comments you write. Each and every time, a little … erm, okay, a very, very LOUD voice in my head asks “How the hell does she come up with this???” As soon as I see your name I carefully prepare myself for teehees, snorts and dangerous guffaws! I may have to begin wearing a protective helmet so I don’t have to worry about serious head injuries when I fall off my chair in uncontrollable laughter. So far I’ve been lucky … but just!
Jury duty is still on my wish list … NOT. I’ve been lucky about that too.
I am now going to prepare a safe reading area for More Cowbell Chronicles.
Patricia!! I am honoUred that you took the time to visit from across the pond. Took time from your month of soaking-up-all-things-French and lovely to read and comment.
You do not want to know how I come up with these things. My brain works (when it does) in weird and wonky ways. Actually, the post about municipal court is one that’s been noodling in my noggin since the day it happened.
That question was bubble talk I chose not to verbalize. My brain-to-mouth filter worked. It happens. We celebrate those occasions around here.
YES! YES! YES! Get ready for the More Cowbell Chronicles.
Oh my gosh! You do realize I’m tempted to blast through the budget and fly to France each time I read one of your posts and see those pictures. So beautiful! So much culture!
You might be a bit out of your mind Gloria. I dig crazy chicks!
Thsi was epic. I have been called to jury duty a few times here in NYC. I get picked for a few cases and during the interview process I always mention that I have cops in my family and am a member of a gun range and have an imaginary friend that I refer to for life advice and he is standing right next to me. Funny, they seem to dismiss me quickly each time.
KA-SNORT, Phil!
*Gasp* You out-snarked me.
I’m going to consult my imaginary friend in my imaginary tree house about whether or not I like that. Either way, it’s a challenge.
The wonky bar has been elevated.
Gloria, a good friend who was a supreme court judge in NYC told me that we should never complain about the justice system, since most qualified jurors make lame excuses not to serve. Don’t ka-snort me … but I have happily avoided it all my grown life. I guess I get what I deserve from the old gal … she is after all blind folded 🙂
Love, love, love your warped sense of humor (justice) ??
Oh, Florence, Florence, Florence…
Did I never tell you that the one thing I’m told not to do becomes the one thing I most want to do?
Immediately.
KA-SNORT!!!! <=== Bonus exclamation points just for you. 🙂
Do you tell me this because you're
delusional and think you’reone of those qualified jurors, or because we’re game on (!) for creative versus lame excuses not to serve?I never run out of excuses 🙂
I’ve never been called for jury duty and now that I’ve been blogging for over a year and my crazy thought process is now floating around the ether, I figure I’ll never be called.
*slinks off to check the mailbox to be sure*
Though, if I had to be on a jury, I’d make certain it was the one you were serving on. Just sayin’.
Only Gloria Richards could take something as drab and mundane as jury-duty and turn it into hilarious, satirical comedy – love your spirit, woman!
~ C
Scratch the “s” – my finger done slipped right out under me!
🙂