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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2383 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Shkreli's voir dire

rends shirt, tears hair

Look - Voir dire is a community process. A full jury and a full alternate jury sit during voir dire and they get to hear what's excused and what isn't. Which means if you're standing next to someone who says "I think Martin Shkreli is a douchebag" and then hear "you're excused" you hear

- if I say Martin Shkreli is a douchebag i don't have to sit through a lengthy media trial where I'm not allowed to surf the internet or read the papers or talk about this with my husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/priest/fantasy football league for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Jury duty is a pain in the ass. Jury duty for a week is a royal pain in the ass. Jury duty for six fuckin' weeks? That is a life hardship. OJ's jury was sequestered for 8 months.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there were four complimentary desires here:

- the defense, that wanted a change of venue

- the prosecution, that wanted the defense to waive a jury trial

- the judge, who wasn't about to grant a change of venue

- the jurors, who were staring down the barrel of a lengthy and public jury trial that wouldn't even garner them enough fame for a book deal

So what we're left with are the 200 lazy excuses of everyone who had a life who got out of the way for the eighteen who didn't.