Many years ago, a friend overheard me grouse about being called to jury duty. Not to worry, he said, offering his “foolproof plan for evading civic responsibility.”
His advice was…interesting.
“When they start asking you questions, just sit there in the jury box and appear to tie a small hangman’s noose the whole time. If that fails to get their attention, consider responding to every question with “I AM THE ARM AND SWORD OF THE LORD!”
He assured me these would work during “voir dire” which is Latin for “tryna find at least a dozen people that don’t use their meat fork for a backscratcher.” Kidding. That’s just in Alabama.
Sadly, we’ll never know if these admittedly loony ideas would’ve worked because a jury of responsible citizens not tying nooses and babbling crazy talk was seated before my number came up. I was released from the jury pool to swim home and ponder how I’d spend the eight dollars I was paid for my “service.” And, yes, I think we can all agree I was overpaid.
I was young and busy back in those days. Now I am neither. I’ve always thought when it comes to serving on a jury, they have it exactly backward. You shouldn’t be eligible until you’re old, not exempted because you’re old. We have time for this stuff. Don’t send a summons to a nursing mother with a part-time job, a husband who wouldn’t work in a pie factory and twins in kindergarten. That’s just mean. But older folks? Put us in Coach. Plus, I can’t speak for others, but I get judgier every year so let’s just say I’ve got this.
The time has come. I’m ready to fulfill my duty wherever and however necessary. Therefore, I can think of no greater service I could provide my country than to serve on the jury for Donald Trump’s criminal case in which he is accused of paying $130,000 to a porn star with a nifty lady wrassler name so she’d keep quiet about their affair.
This trial, with jury selection beginning as I write these words, lacks the, well, murders in the Murdaugh trial that so captivated the nation last year. And Trump’s trial won’t have the TMZ tea-spillin’ wackadoodle lure of Johnny Depp’s trial back in 2022—so many captivating characters—and there is a total and complete exhaustion with the subject but…it’s the hand we’ve been dealt so let’s go with it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m eligible to serve. For starters I’m not a New York resident. And there’s that Facebook profile pic of me appearing to crotch-grab the Trump balloon when it visited my hometown. (“When you’re powerful, the balloon likes it.”) That could indicate a bias against the defendant. Not to mention “People’s Exhibits A-infinity,” a list of approximately 208 newspaper columns in which I’ve referred to Trump alternately as a “malevolent toddler,” “Orange Foolius,” “Dumbelldore,” “Trumplethinskin,” “Mar-a-lardo” etc. etc.
I can’t imagine where they’ll find any New Yorker unfamiliar with the case so they may have to go a little farther afield. I’m thinking…Saturn?
The judge won’t allow cameras, so we’ll once again be treated to some truly ghastly drawings of all the players. I’m no fan of Trump but the sketch artists who have drawn him in previous legal proceedings appear to be failed caricaturists from some of the nation’s lesser-known beach boardwalks using dry-erase markers that have been missing their tops since the ‘90s.
Are they paid per bag etched beneath the eyes of the prosecutors? The defense lawyers all appear to possess a positively cruel number of facial warts and rheumy eyes. If I do get on a jury one day, I’m going to demand no sketch “artists.” If they balk, I’ll dust off that arm and sword of the Lord line. That’ll work.