Jury Doody

During the sum total of 17 years' residence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I have been served with five summons for jury duty. That's right. Once every 3.4 years, someone in the Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner gets a Microsoft Outlook reminder to mail Coach Susan a summons. It comes every 3.4 years just to ensure that I can't invoke the "Nope, I've served within the last 3 years" escape clause. (Well, once I got to do that but they fixed up their reminder recurrence so they'll never make that mistake again, by golly!)

But I possess an escape clause that is rock solid, so long as a female judge is seated on the bench. I have much less faith in a male judge finding any sympathy for the situation. It's called The Crohn's Disease Plea. During the selection process when the judge asks whether anyone has any physical disabilities or limitations that might impede one's ability to serve (she's thinking things like: can't hear the exact degree of pompitude in the defense attorney's tone or can't see the accused murderer "struggle" to pull on a shrunken blood-soaked leather glove) you just wave your little white juror number card at her. Eventually, when the Court Officer nudges you awake because you're four hours into the impanelment proceedings and it's time for you, number 23, to have a private little tête-à-tête with the judge, 2 court reporters, 2 clerks of court, and 4 representing attorneys, you tell her "I need to go potty urgently and sometimes frequently." When she asks you how you've managed to endure the morning's grueling test to prove your fitness for the extreme boredom that qualifies you to serve as a juror, you inform her you haven't eaten in more than 16 hours. Have you ever heard a Personal Injury Attorney gasp? I have. It's precious. Not even Santa himself could have produced a better Christmas present.

OK, yeah, yeah, civic duty, only mandatory selective service we perform anymore, yada, yada, yada. The problem is this: to be an effective juror, you must possess the ability to remain unbiased and unopinionated and non-judgemental (three terms which have never been correctly used to describe your coach) despite the fact that you are staring in the face of the sort of parasites who sue poor, well-meaning, unsuspecting doctors for medical malpractice to benefit themselves, er... ahem, the "estate" of a deceased Old Guy who possessed the good judgement to check himself out within mere days of receiving aforementioned doctors' attentions.

Truthfully, the tiny little bit of information we were given in the overview of the case was hardly enough to determine whether an undiagnosed fractured vertebra caused the Old Guy's untimely demise but this particular granddaughter of a morphine-saturated 91 year old woman who has suffered multiple compression fractures of several vertebrae found it instantly implausible. I just felt sorry for the doctors. This does not an impartial juror make.

Plus, I had the Crohn's Disease Plea to test. Now that I know it has precedence, I shall cop it again in 3.4 years. Take that, Office of the Jury Commissioner and your dastardly Outlook Recurring Reminder!