Law Humor

How to get out of jury duty.

By NBlack

Via Lowering the Bar comes some entertaining voir dire responses occurring during the recent R. Kelly trial in Chicago, as described in a Chicago Tribune article:

• Suggesting (especially given the facts of the R. Kelly case) that the age of consent should be lowered to puberty, as "nature" intended;
• Pausing for a sufficiently long period of time after being asked if you could give the defendant a fair trial;
• Praising the defendant, such as by calling him a "musical genius."  (Asked to come up with something negative about R., this potential juror could only say, "Um, he and Jay-Z don't get along?")
• Stating, in what was called a "perfectly worded response," that "I believe Mr. Kelly is guilty of the charges due to what I have read in the papers, and the fact that he was indicted by the grand jury further validates my beliefs."  Not coincidentally, this potential juror is a legal secretary.
• Best: combining the suggestion that you would never convict with a reference to 9-11: "R. Kelly may have led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11, but you can't prove it."  Well, I could if I had it on film, I think.
  

Full post as published by Legal Antics on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).