A man who skipped out on jury duty will spend two days marching in front of the courthouse carrying a sign saying, "I failed to appear for jury duty." more ›

A few months back, Karl reviewed how to prepare for jury duty. And we later learned one way to get out of jury duty is to be President of the United States. Well, Railton Loy of South Bend, Indiana recently showed us another way to get out of it: declare you're a member of the KKK. According to the South Bend Tribune: more ›

It was a busy weekend. Here's what you might have missed. more ›

It's a shame, really. Karl had just whipped up some nifty guidelines to surviving jury duty and lo and behold, none other than the Commander in Chief comes up due to serve. It seems, though, he's going to opt out of his civic duty, playing the "I'm the leader of the Free World" card. How convenient. Of course, we kid. Trying to fix the economy and solve the health care crisis certainly do trump a day in a Cook County courthouse holding room. A source told the Sun-Times' Michael Sneed, "The president won't be expected to show up, but I'm sure he has already received his summons and responded. The jury summons contains his Kenwood address and is for a jury trial on Monday." We accept his excuse but vow to take our jury duty assignment seriously the next time one of us comes up. If it's good enough for Mr. T... more ›

It was just before New Years Eve that I capped off 2009 by receiving a summons for standby jury duty for January 19th. And it was on this Monday that I called the Cook County justice system to have the news barked at me that "if your last name starts with E AS IN ECHO through Z AS IN ZULU" I was to please report to 26th and California bright and early. I lived to tell the tale, and pass it on to you, Dear Reader. more ›

We knew it was a slow news week when the news-i-verse was all a-quibble about Monkey Pox SARS Bird Flu the Swine Flu. And while he's no Bo Obama, we were amused to see the Sun-Times coverage of Mr. T: Juror. It seems the widely-recognized actor, role model, and cereal spokesperson was called in to Cook County Criminal Court yesterday to be a potential juror on a drug case. The first person to recognize T? The defendant's daughter. more ›

If you don't want to spend time in a courthouse for jury duty, here's a little tip: Don't make a bomb threat instead. That's a pretty much guaranteed way to spend yet more time intimately involved with the criminal justice system. But no one told Addison resident Toby Owhoka, who placed a call to the Jury Commission in DuPage County yesterday, complaining that she didn't want to sit on a jury. more ›