I start by arriving at the courthouse just after 8:00 and entering the “Disney line” snaking back from the metal detector. Moved pretty fast, compared to the airline security checks, even though there was just one detector and 2 security people. Less luggage to check, I suppose.
I found one of the waiting rooms, got myself my morning Diet Coke and found a seat. Soon, they began the announcements and played the introductory video. In what I’m sure was an attempt to make our jury service seem less burdensome, they pointed out via re-enactment that in the olden days, people used to go through what was called, Trial by Ordeal. No, they didn’t make them go to
football games in Cleveland; they would bind the accused persons hands and feet and chuck them into the water. If they floated, they were guilty and if they sunk, they were innocent. All I could do was think of the witch scene in Holy Grail and giggle.
Also in the video, they gave a special warning for us not to expect someone to confess to the crime five minutes before the top of the 
hour, as had occurred in every episode of Perry Mason ever made. To illustrate, they showed a Perry Mason clip of a guy coming out of the court’s audience to confess to the crime to which they were about to convict his girlfriend. Obviously, Perry Mason was not working in the Baltimore jurisdiction. Here, if a guy’s girlfriend is getting sent up for his crime, he’s not confessing, he’s in the parking lot doing back flips.
They also mentioned that we would not be hearing any “ka-chunk” sound, like you hear with every scene change on “Law and Order.” OK, they didn’t say that, but they should have. I was looking forward to that.
They also pointed out, via announcement, that now we jurors could check in, get our jury summons validated and get our $15 pay in one fell swoop, where in the past that would entail 3 separate call ups. I silently thanked them for eventually taking action on something that should have been painfully obvious. I do like the idea of getting paid before doing your job. Maybe that can be a part of the next Stimulus Package. Oh, and before anyone asks, they emphasized the steep penalties if you skip out after checking in… 90 days in jail and/or a $1000 fine. They began calling us up in groups to check in. I had a very low juror number; in fact, it was the lowest in the range of people called to appear. So I was in the first group for just about everything that day.
So now we wait until a judge somewhere needs a jury. Lunch is at 12:30, unless we’re called into court. I dig into my crossword puzzle, expecting to spend at least at hour on it, as I usually do on Fridays. Joke’s on me though… I knock it out in 20 minutes. Looks like it’s going to be a long day. I fiddle around with the Sudoku puzzle for a while, but get tired of that. They begin showing the movie Meet The Parents. I dig out my book, “Monty Python and Philosophy” and keep an eye on both.
Random observation: I was surprised at the racial mix in the room. I was expecting a Baltimore City jury pool to be predominantly black. In fact, it looked to be about 60/40.
I noticed that when I took a bathroom break, they have lots signs on the wall about sanitary practices. They do not, however, have a trashcan for your paper towels. I guess they put all their funding into DVDs.
Just about noon, they make the announcement that they need some jurors. Hot damn, time to spring into action! I’m included in the first group of 50, so off we go the courtroom and all I can think is, “but when’s lunch?”
So we get there and have attendance taken to make sure no one got lost on the walk. (We had to change buildings.) Our courtroom accommodations were fairly Spartan… not at all like the high ceilings you see on your average episode of Perry Mason. They had three rows of benches to sit in, which were like church pews without the kneelers. As we were packed in there cheek to cheek, I began to have serious regrets about having chili for dinner the night before. It had been an uncomfortable morning already, but you never want to let anything escape while sitting on a church pew, especially with armed guards nearby. Wouldn’t want them thinking that someone in the jury pool had smuggled in a machine gun.
The judge explained that the charge in this case was “possession of a gun, in violation of parole.” First order of business was the “voir dire” (meaning to “speak the truth”) or in other words, the jury questioning. That’s when the group is asked a number of questions and anyone for whom the answer is yes is to stand up and give their juror number. The questions:
Do you or does anyone in your immediate family know the defendant?
Do you or does anyone in your immediate family know the judge or attorneys?
Are you or anyone in your immediate family working in law enforcement?
No one stood for any of these.
Are you more or less likely to believe testimony from a police officer based on the fact that they’re a police officer?
Just one guy stood, a middle-aged white guy.
Now, a 2-part question: Have you or has anyone in your family been a victim of a crime, OR have you or anyone in your family ever committed a crime?
Just about everyone in the room stood up. I don’t think there were 12 people left sitting, so they couldn’t get rid of all of us…
Last question: Due to moral or religious grounds, are you unable to make a fair decision regarding this trial?
Sounds like the “get out of jail free” card… 2 or 3 women stand up, one of which I already heard muttering about not wanting to be there.
After the questions, each juror that had stood for any question was brought up to the judge to explain. Guess who was first?
I approached the bench, and tried not to look at the defendant. This was not easy… he was about 5’7, 280 pounds, with a wide Mohawk. Looked like a bouncer at a low-class strip bar… a cross between the actor Anthony Anderson and Mr. T. He didn’t seem very menacing, however; in fact he was doing a lot of smiling and bouncing around. He didn’t seem very worried.
The judge asks me to explain my “yes” answer, and tell her about having my car broken into and ignition busted out while it was parked at the subway station last summer. She and the two attorneys ask about the case… was it ever solved? Was I satisfied with the police response? Would I be able to render a fair decision?
I said that I could, and with that, I was allowed to return to my seat. Now I just had to wait for the rest of my peers to do the same. They let us go for lunch about 1:10, (thank you, Your Honor), so I went to Quiznos and then back to my office to take care of off-loading that chili.
I returned from lunch to more waiting, as the rest of the jury pool approached the bench and tried to get out of serving. It took another hour… luckily I had a fresh Sports Illustrated to read
. Since they have the bench and attorney tables miked, whenever people were discussing something at the bench, they turned off the mics and left a static noise, like when the TV is on a non-broadcasting channel. That way, you can’t hear squat, except the white noise. A little bit of that is fine, but after a while, you just want to claw your ears off.
After the attorneys and judge huddled for about 10 minutes, the clerk began calling us up, six at a time, to stand and face the attorney’s table. (Again, guess who’s first?) Each of us has to step forward and then both attorneys are asked if the juror is acceptable. If either says no, the juror is returned to the back seating. If both say yes, the juror takes a seat in the jury box. They took me, and I became Juror #1. Dig it! That’s me, blazing the trail and ready to deal a little justice. At least the seats in the jury box had pads and were fairly comfortable.
After they filled the 12 seats, each attorney was asked if the panel was acceptable. This surprised me… If we were OK a second ago, what’s different now? They ended up pulling two people back off the jury, called up more people from the back of the room, and got us back to 12. For what it’s worth, we were roughly split between men and women, had 8 blacks, 3 whites and an Indian. They also appointed two alternates.
As it was late in the afternoon now, the judge told us to report on Monday afternoon, and the trial was expected to last until Wednesday.
I arrive at the courthouse Monday afternoon at 1:15, anxious to get on with the show. I report to the jury room as instructed and then proceed to WAIT FOR 2 AND A HALF GODDAMN HOURS. Nice people I was in there with, but after a while, we were starting to get punchy. We could hear court stuff going out outside the door, but we were given specific instructions Not To Open the Door. If we had any questions, we had to knock and give the clerk a written question for the judge. Eventually one of the jurors did just that, wanting to know what was going on.
Another 10 minutes went by before the clerk came to get us. Whoo Hoo! Time to do some decidin’ and mete out a little jurisprudence.
Buuuuuut… no. The judge told us that she apologizes for the long wait, but unfortunately, we would not be able to try the case today. We were dismissed as jurors.
Shit.
What a letdown… for me, anyway. Some of my fellow jurors were just fine with that, but I really wanted to see it through. Instead, after all the legal foreplay, I’m left with nothing but a ringing case of judicial blue-balls.
hour, as had occurred in every episode of Perry Mason ever made. To illustrate, they showed a Perry Mason clip of a guy coming out of the court’s audience to confess to the crime to which they were about to convict his girlfriend. Obviously, Perry Mason was not working in the Baltimore jurisdiction. Here, if a guy’s girlfriend is getting sent up for his crime, he’s not confessing, he’s in the parking lot doing back flips.They also mentioned that we would not be hearing any “ka-chunk” sound, like you hear with every scene change on “Law and Order.” OK, they didn’t say that, but they should have. I was looking forward to that.
They also pointed out, via announcement, that now we jurors could check in, get our jury summons validated and get our $15 pay in one fell swoop, where in the past that would entail 3 separate call ups. I silently thanked them for eventually taking action on something that should have been painfully obvious. I do like the idea of getting paid before doing your job. Maybe that can be a part of the next Stimulus Package. Oh, and before anyone asks, they emphasized the steep penalties if you skip out after checking in… 90 days in jail and/or a $1000 fine. They began calling us up in groups to check in. I had a very low juror number; in fact, it was the lowest in the range of people called to appear. So I was in the first group for just about everything that day.
So now we wait until a judge somewhere needs a jury. Lunch is at 12:30, unless we’re called into court. I dig into my crossword puzzle, expecting to spend at least at hour on it, as I usually do on Fridays. Joke’s on me though… I knock it out in 20 minutes. Looks like it’s going to be a long day. I fiddle around with the Sudoku puzzle for a while, but get tired of that. They begin showing the movie Meet The Parents. I dig out my book, “Monty Python and Philosophy” and keep an eye on both.
Random observation: I was surprised at the racial mix in the room. I was expecting a Baltimore City jury pool to be predominantly black. In fact, it looked to be about 60/40.
I noticed that when I took a bathroom break, they have lots signs on the wall about sanitary practices. They do not, however, have a trashcan for your paper towels. I guess they put all their funding into DVDs.
Just about noon, they make the announcement that they need some jurors. Hot damn, time to spring into action! I’m included in the first group of 50, so off we go the courtroom and all I can think is, “but when’s lunch?”
So we get there and have attendance taken to make sure no one got lost on the walk. (We had to change buildings.) Our courtroom accommodations were fairly Spartan… not at all like the high ceilings you see on your average episode of Perry Mason. They had three rows of benches to sit in, which were like church pews without the kneelers. As we were packed in there cheek to cheek, I began to have serious regrets about having chili for dinner the night before. It had been an uncomfortable morning already, but you never want to let anything escape while sitting on a church pew, especially with armed guards nearby. Wouldn’t want them thinking that someone in the jury pool had smuggled in a machine gun.
The judge explained that the charge in this case was “possession of a gun, in violation of parole.” First order of business was the “voir dire” (meaning to “speak the truth”) or in other words, the jury questioning. That’s when the group is asked a number of questions and anyone for whom the answer is yes is to stand up and give their juror number. The questions:
Do you or does anyone in your immediate family know the defendant?
Do you or does anyone in your immediate family know the judge or attorneys?
Are you or anyone in your immediate family working in law enforcement?
No one stood for any of these.
Are you more or less likely to believe testimony from a police officer based on the fact that they’re a police officer?
Just one guy stood, a middle-aged white guy.
Now, a 2-part question: Have you or has anyone in your family been a victim of a crime, OR have you or anyone in your family ever committed a crime?
Just about everyone in the room stood up. I don’t think there were 12 people left sitting, so they couldn’t get rid of all of us…
Last question: Due to moral or religious grounds, are you unable to make a fair decision regarding this trial?
Sounds like the “get out of jail free” card… 2 or 3 women stand up, one of which I already heard muttering about not wanting to be there.
After the questions, each juror that had stood for any question was brought up to the judge to explain. Guess who was first?
I approached the bench, and tried not to look at the defendant. This was not easy… he was about 5’7, 280 pounds, with a wide Mohawk. Looked like a bouncer at a low-class strip bar… a cross between the actor Anthony Anderson and Mr. T. He didn’t seem very menacing, however; in fact he was doing a lot of smiling and bouncing around. He didn’t seem very worried.
The judge asks me to explain my “yes” answer, and tell her about having my car broken into and ignition busted out while it was parked at the subway station last summer. She and the two attorneys ask about the case… was it ever solved? Was I satisfied with the police response? Would I be able to render a fair decision?
I said that I could, and with that, I was allowed to return to my seat. Now I just had to wait for the rest of my peers to do the same. They let us go for lunch about 1:10, (thank you, Your Honor), so I went to Quiznos and then back to my office to take care of off-loading that chili.
I returned from lunch to more waiting, as the rest of the jury pool approached the bench and tried to get out of serving. It took another hour… luckily I had a fresh Sports Illustrated to read
. Since they have the bench and attorney tables miked, whenever people were discussing something at the bench, they turned off the mics and left a static noise, like when the TV is on a non-broadcasting channel. That way, you can’t hear squat, except the white noise. A little bit of that is fine, but after a while, you just want to claw your ears off.After the attorneys and judge huddled for about 10 minutes, the clerk began calling us up, six at a time, to stand and face the attorney’s table. (Again, guess who’s first?) Each of us has to step forward and then both attorneys are asked if the juror is acceptable. If either says no, the juror is returned to the back seating. If both say yes, the juror takes a seat in the jury box. They took me, and I became Juror #1. Dig it! That’s me, blazing the trail and ready to deal a little justice. At least the seats in the jury box had pads and were fairly comfortable.
After they filled the 12 seats, each attorney was asked if the panel was acceptable. This surprised me… If we were OK a second ago, what’s different now? They ended up pulling two people back off the jury, called up more people from the back of the room, and got us back to 12. For what it’s worth, we were roughly split between men and women, had 8 blacks, 3 whites and an Indian. They also appointed two alternates.
As it was late in the afternoon now, the judge told us to report on Monday afternoon, and the trial was expected to last until Wednesday.
I arrive at the courthouse Monday afternoon at 1:15, anxious to get on with the show. I report to the jury room as instructed and then proceed to WAIT FOR 2 AND A HALF GODDAMN HOURS. Nice people I was in there with, but after a while, we were starting to get punchy. We could hear court stuff going out outside the door, but we were given specific instructions Not To Open the Door. If we had any questions, we had to knock and give the clerk a written question for the judge. Eventually one of the jurors did just that, wanting to know what was going on.
Another 10 minutes went by before the clerk came to get us. Whoo Hoo! Time to do some decidin’ and mete out a little jurisprudence.
Buuuuuut… no. The judge told us that she apologizes for the long wait, but unfortunately, we would not be able to try the case today. We were dismissed as jurors.
Shit.
What a letdown… for me, anyway. Some of my fellow jurors were just fine with that, but I really wanted to see it through. Instead, after all the legal foreplay, I’m left with nothing but a ringing case of judicial blue-balls.
Ka-chunk!
Harvey Korman stepped out from the Carol Burnett show to portray a brilliant comedic villain, foil to Sheriff Bart and confidant of the “Gov” (Mel Brooks). No word if Tim Conway was unavailable.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys that do “South Park” did an action movie that makes fun of the lunkheads that blow up the entire city in pursuit of the bad guys, and the weenie Hollywood establishment that protests their methods. And they did it all with marionettes.
In a movie with so many bizarre characters and memorable scenes, this guy is completely stands out with his over-the-top French-accented insults.
Oh, my. This “villain” had my little 6-year-old world all screwed up. I know she was always setting deadly traps for Batman, but me-yow, even my tiny elementary-school brain could see she was fiiiiine. Even Batman just wanted to get her up to the Bat Cave. (Nope… no jokes about the Bat Pole… must… resist…)
“Why so serious?” Because this was a serious role, that’s why. I saw the Dark Knight in the theater last year and you just couldn’t take your eyes off the guy. The role was richly written and brilliantly acted. I used to think that Jack Nicholson’s Joker was the gold standard… he had it way over the TV version. But the thing is, you always knew it was Jack Nic. He never stopped being Jack. I don’t know where Heath Ledger went during the filming of that movie, but he was gone and only insanity was left, along with that lizard tongue.
This is what you get when you cross a mean, small-minded bureaucrat with unfettered power. The reason she gets this ranking from me is that I know people like this, sans that magic. The shallow veneer of civility can only hide so much. Putting people like this in charge of children is like putting a necrophiliac in charge of the Coroner’s Office.
I suppose you could be charitable and say, he wasn’t inherently evil, it was just the programming, but his effect on the main characters was that of a nightmare.
Good thing we have Ellen Ripley on our side. I’d hate to see a squad of these things running all over the place. Fast, smart, deadly, dagger-like tail, small jaws inside big jaws, rows of teeth, lots of drool and acid for blood.
6. The Big Alien Bugs from “Starship Troopers”
These things are just nasty and there are way too many of them. This was a movie that basically revolved around attractive young male and female soldiers being killed in horrible ways by giant space-bugs. Not that I’m against that… But I’m always unsettled by the scene pictured above, where a small band of soldiers are trying to hold a fort against wave after wave of these killer bugs. Kind of like The Alamo if it were sponsored by “Raid.”
This movie used the original “Jaws” formula of rarely showing you a good look at the monster. (albeit without the sterling acting chops or masterful storytelling) You just don’t know what the hell this thing is, but what you do see is compelling and quite scary.
Another alien… this one is dug out of the ice by a crew stationed somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. This thing can take the form of anything it kills, so dropping it into this isolated camp in a frozen wasteland made for a very claustrophobic, paranoid thriller. The scene where it busts out of a body and the head separates, then grows big old crab legs and skitters away… that was just something out of an LSD hallucination. No one ever forgets that scene. But just to remind...
This is a “villain” that changed lives. Anyone that was alive in 1975 and went to the beach couldn’t help feel a bit uneasy about venturing into the water, whether it was an ocean, a lake or a puddle. I know this movie scared the living crap out of me back then. The shark was clunky by today’s standards and didn’t always work, so Spielberg compensated by not showing it very often. And the unseen monster, even when you basically know what it is, is often scariest.
OK, now it’s getting personal. It’s a clown thing, and again, Spielberg always seems to know what scares me. I’ve always hated clowns. When I was little, I used to have recurring nightmares about a clown trying to get me. I think it goes back to when I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad. (sorry… that’s a Jack Handey quote.) To tell the truth, I got a shudder just pulling the photo above. And the one below…
Another shudder… Tim Curry was a brilliant choice to play Pennywise, the evil clown-monster from Stephen King’s “It”. This is a clown that taunts you, mocks you, makes fun of you, then bites your arm off. And this was just a TV movie. I’m actually kind of relieved that it was never a feature film.
