The jury selection process is one fraught with banalities and ironic prejudice; prejudice against the biased, surely, but prejudice no less! It’s a tedious and time consuming effort to gather a group of people that serve as an accurate representation of the community which first begins with sending out the honorary jury draft letters. Though perhaps calling it a “draft” is inaccurate, as the draft is mandatory under punishment of death (it is, right?), meanwhile half the people asked to show up for jury duty can’t even be arsed to get out of bed that morning. The percentage of lazy sods who skip out on their date with court-appointed destiny is staggering. So staggering, in fact, I seem to have forgotten it. Baffling, truly!
Now that you’ve assembled a meager number of people from your initial draft (and while you contemplate sending more letters next time to account for the lack of work ethic and civic responsibility that seem to be plaguing the area) you can begin with the questioning process. Each potential juror is asked a series of questions which will be used to determine if they harbor any bias or have any relation to the person(s) on trial. Feel free to conduct a miniature evaluation yourself while they all wait around for their chance to be questioned. Protip: the man with the shirt reading “I hate Jews” probably isn’t a good candidate.
Once you’ve weeded out the racists, the kooks, and the women–oh, wait, I’ve been told we’re letting them participate now. Law is a man’s profession, how do we expect to get a fair trial by a jury of peers when some of them have vaginas? Well, anyway, I’ll have to bring that one up sometime later, but let’s assume you’ve gotten your jurors together. You think you’re done with them? Not a chance, Clarence! There’s a mandatory gauntlet of evaluations to be run on these hapless innocents, most of which are just fancy ways of looking to a colleague and nodding knowingly, then dismissing someone on account of wearing navy pants with black shoes. Tackiness is a most heinous crime in this courtroom!
You’ll know the gauntlet is done when all your potential jurors have been reduced to tears. Only the strong survive past this point while the weak are given the consolation prize of knowing they failed to be included in what can only be described as the best jury since the last one (the last one really was a fine lot, so don’t be fooled by how unimpressive that initially sounds).
Your jury complete, your pride shining brightly and reflecting in their eyes as crystalline glints of judicial perfection, you may now send them–your children, the future–forward to meet their destiny. Provided they don’t get yanked out of the court by the stupid prosecution who’s really only objecting because he feels they’re a threat to his case. “Blonde juror,” he will say in his snooty and incredibly fake accent, “I find you to be biased in a way I have yet to determine!”
And I will slam my hands against my desk and yell, “Shove it, Larry! You do this every time! Can’t you let me have my moment even once?!”
And he will look upon me earnestly and say, “No.”
Dreams destroyed, hope extinguished, there is nothing left to live for. But you can die knowing that you assembled a jury so ferocious that the prosecution felt you might actually win a case for once.
-Alex
