Another Skinny Dip in the Jury Pool

I’m sorry. I still haven’t written up this story. There is a story behind it. A couple weeks ago, I served on a jury, for a short criminal trial, a case that should never have even been brought to trial.

You may be familiar with the classic scene in the prototypical courtroom TV drama. The jury is returning, after only having deliberated for an hour. The sympathetic defendant asks his attorney, “What does that mean? Is that good or bad?” The lawyer responds, “It’s good if the verdict is ’not guilty.'”

The truth, as I discovered, is far simpler. When the jury returns after deliberating for only an hour, what that means is that the court bought them lunch, and it took them that long to finish eating.

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