Runaway Jury Duty

"Why does the jury system pick on self-employed persons?" is one of the FAQs on the L.A. Superior Court's jury website. It goes on to assure readers that "jury selection is entirely random." But actor/writer Brad Slaight suspected he was somehow being singled out, because he'd received a jury summons only a year ago and received another one recently -- the minimum time allowed between summons under stiff new California regulations regarding jury duty.

Slaight's suspicion only sharpened when he got to the courthouse and faced the judge in the jury selection interviews. After watching several people get off the hook by saying their employers wouldn't pay for jury duty time, Brad's plea was dismissed out of hand.

"I said, 'Your honor, I'm an actor. I'm not working, but I need to be available,' " said Slaight. " 'One audition could mean a year's salary for me.' The judge didn't buy it."

Though he was later dismissed by the defense lawyer during jury pool selection, he wondered (via a popular actors' bulletin board) if this was a case of "profiling." Actor colleagues reported similar cases.

Slaight said he understood the logic of cracking down on L.A.'s once-porous jury system. But he still felt unfairly singled out, and said he would write a letter to his elected representative, perhaps stressing that with rampant runaway production, L.A. actors don't need yet another obstacle to pursuing their livelihood.

Maybe Slaight can take comfort in the opinion of one city attorney I spoke to, who said that from a prosecutor's perspective, he tries to eliminate actors and other creative types from his juries. Thespians make bad jurors for the prosecution, he said, because they're more likely to engage in "scenario writing" -- meaning that instead of accepting the simplest circumstantial version of events, which is often the prosecution's case, thespians will craft or imagine complicated alternative possibilities.

Especially actors who've appeared in "12 Angry Men."