Holy Abberrant Anthropology, Batman!

I recently had the opportunity to serve circuit court jury duty for the first time. Now, before you all mob me for autographs, I must regrettably inform you that it is nowhere near as glamorous as Hollywood would have you believe. There were no Clarence Darrow-esque orations, no dramatic gavel-banging condemnations, no John Grisham-style cloak and dagger shenanigans, and, most depressingly, no multi-million-dollar sequel rights. At least, I assume not. I never even got pulled from the juror pool. The closest I got to the American legal system was sitting in the back of a courtroom squinting at a haggard middle-aged woman trying to determine whether or not I thought she was guilty. No, no, of course I mean, trying to determine if I was familiar with her in any way which might adversely affect my ability to sit in the jury box mentally attiring the court staff in clown outfits and composing obscene verses to Dr. Seuss rhymes. If you think I'm kidding, you obviously have had no exposure to modern jurisprudence. It would seem, at first, that this would be detrimental to the legal process-- and probably it would be, if not for the fact that the counsel for both parties routinely fill the court's time by competing to see who can string together the greatest number of successive nonsense words while still keeping a straight face. But when you observe some of the individuals routinely posted to an average jury, you will quickly determine that the further removed from the actual decision-making process a jury can be kept, the better for all parties involved. Consider, if you will, this small cross-section of the group of prospective jurors of which I was a member:

• The volunteer fireman/EMT who, by his own admission, derived great pleasure from attending the scene of residential fires, and who seemed more interested in preceding other emergency medical units to a call than actually attending the victims.
  
• The late-middle-aged man who seemed genuinely dismayed at being denied the privilege of passing judgment in a murder case
  
• One admittedly great guy who, I am almost certain, chose to partake of some combustible botanical matter other than tobacco during at least one smoking break.
  
• The two or three older gentlemen who seemed never to actually leave the courthouse, remaining always congregated in one spot or another swapping miserable-life stories.
  
• The pompous, self righteous young Christian woman who took pride in ministering endlessly to anyone who would listen, while never once forgoing to laugh at the distinctly "adult-oriented" humour of another member of the group.
  
• The woman who behaved so eccentrically as to elicit comment from the man who appeared to be perpetually stoned for four days.

...and so on.
As you can see, the law is in fact much better off for having been denied the direct input of average American jurors. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and finish writing the last few verses of "Horton Leers at Hooters".

Think on.