East Texas, Y’all
You know how the rightwing keeps calling transgender persons in the military a liberal “social experiment?”
Okay, let me show you a real “social experiment.” East Texas is a social experiment. The whole damn place. I am convinced of it.
A 23 year old man living in Tyler, Texas, showed up for jury duty drunk and holding a large Coke cup filled with beer.
The deputies said the man was walking in an unstable manner and appeared to not be in a normal mental state when he left the jury room and exited the building, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
When the man attempted to come back inside the courthouse, deputies stopped him. Once he was stopped, he turned the Coca-Cola cup over to the deputies.
The sumbitch shows up drunk for jury duty and then leaves for a refill.
He was arrested for public intoxication with a $260 bond. The county does not release the names of people arrested for misdemeanors, which is a shame because I am certain this guy’s arrest picture would include a sleeveless shirt and a Make American Great Again cap.
Thanks to Sarah for the heads up.
Let me get this straight. He was drinking alcohol in the jury room? Was this an all male jury?
1Hate to say it but his judgement probably isn’t much better when he’s sober. My guess is that he REALLY didn’t want to serve on a jury…or, he was just keepin’ his weekend bender alive.
2Nothing says respect and etc like showing up $hit-faced at a wedding, a court appearance, or at a jail to visit a friend. “Oh drunk in the corner, your table for one is ready.”
3Poor guy. His buddies’ truck broke down, and wasn’t able to be there to perform his sacred redneck duty. In other words, nobody he could trust was there for Bubba to say “Hold my beer”.
4That’s not all that much trouble to get out of jury duty. $260 seems a bit steep though.
5I feel your pain, buddy.
I was on a jury once. The trial had all the exciting, dramatic moments you see in a trial scripted for a program on the electric TV. There was a damning tape recording, a stupid mistake by the defendant’s own poorly prepared attorney, and the defendant himself on the stand pretty much admitting his guilt. It would have made a good half hour TV show.
Unfortunately, these dramatic moments were spread out over an eight hour day which consisted mostly of attorneys saying “in the officer’s arrest report, on page 18, line 4 . . . no wait a minute, I think it might be on page 16 . . .”
In other words, there was no editor to cut out the boring parts. We, the jury, had to sit in silence through the entire eight hours of excruciating detail, 95% of which was irrelevant to our vote. The judge occasionally eyeballed us to see if we were awake. I was, but just barely. I’m not sure about the others.
Alcohol would have helped. Next time, I’m bringing a cold six pack. And I’m not sharing. Bring yer own.
6Immediately thought of Larry the Cable Guy and his uncle opening a beer during a funeral service.
I can’t vouch for the link because I’m at work and YouTube is verboten (I guess they haven’t glommed onto TWMDBSI yet!), but here goes:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwju2_-4pbTVAhUEWCYKHccbA8IQtwIIPjAH&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpmG0ZNEPYEY&usg=AFQjCNHaIsI7w8e6CyoODxekgKJikBumPg
7Don’t know what list I got on, but I have been called for jury duty 5 times. One was a murder, one a robbery, one was in federal court, which had softer chairs, and the others were in civil court.This was back when you had to go for 2 weeks, whether or not you got picked for a trial. When you finished one trial, you had to go back in the pool until your 2 weeks were up. Now, it’s one day or one trial. I can’t imagine sitting next to a soused juror, belching during testimony and staggering into the jury box. Mistrial?
8“appeared to not be in a normal mental state”?
Sounds like they may be assuming facts not in evidence. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this was completely normal for this fellow.
9Seems to me that if you show up unable to serve on a jury through your own screwing up, that would be equivalent to not showing up at all, which could result in a fine or even jail time. Sounds good in this case.
10My beloved Dad was tapped for jury duty in 2001. I call to ask that he be removed. When a very tired clerk snapped “Why?” I replied that Dad frequently fell asleep, was stone deaf and thought it was 1972. He was removed from the jury pool but would have done a better job than beerfly.
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