Los Angeles, CA—The retrial of legendary record producer Phil Spector is in the jury selection phase. Lawyers for both sides only want a jury that will accept their version of how the tragic death of 40 year-old Lana Clarkson went down.I have avoided jury duty for my entire life. Because of my occupations and attitudes lawyers from both sides of criminal and civil cases run like Hell from me. It’s not that I want to shirk my civic duty, I just don’t want to spend a week of my time getting shuffled around from court to court only to get redundantly rejected.
To avoid the entire process I have taken to filling out jury questionnaires with crayons complete with illustrations of hangman’s nooses. I always get polite notifications excusing me from serving. I think I’d be a great juror but it will never happen in this lifetime.
If you are called for jury duty at any courthouse you will be sent to various courtrooms. You probably will be rejected during the juror audition process until lawyers for both sides don’t view you as a threat to the verdict they are seeking. When you get put into a prospective pool for a specific trial you are going to be given a questionnaire drafted just for that case.
These questionnaires have changed in recent days to include questions about you Internet habits. You may view this as an outrageous 32 page privacy invasion and you wouldn’t be wrong. Take a look at what they want to know about you if you’re in the Spector jury pool.
Interesting--is it typical to have all those questions about owning a gun, firing a gun, belonging to a pro- or anti-gun rights group? Or is this a more involved questionnaire because it's a big case with expensive lawyers?
ReplyDeleteIs it true that 45% of the jurors polled believed that Phil Spector was guilty before the trial even started?
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