Whose Peers?
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, a short essay, and then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner Wayno, whose weekly blog post I highly recommend.
And here is this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
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The Naked Cartoonist is only a couple of weeks away. I refer not to a nude purveyor of graphic satire but to my new subscription newsletter, which I’ll be offering through this site for $5 a month or $50 per year. You’ll get a piece of creative writing from me each week, along with some extras now and then in the form of photos, videos, unpublished art, and whatever else I come up with on the fly. I’ve been writing some fun stuff for it that I hope you’ll love, but not so much that you want to marry it and keep it for yourself in a stone tower like Rapunzel. That would be stupid.
Today, however, let’s talk about the cartoon above.
We’ve all seen or read countless courtroom dramas, and they can make you wonder what it would be like to be on a jury. As someone who has endured the selection process a dozen times and sat on one jury, I can tell you it’s like being trapped inside the story of Alice in Wonderland—nothing makes sense, and no one seems alarmed by that.
During jury selection, lawyers ask a bunch of people questions to see who they’d like to pick for their jury. The following is a conversation I heard in one such session.
Attorney: This is a case about drug possession. Have any of you ever been arrested on a drug charge or know anyone who has?
Prospective juror raises a hand and says: I don’t like drugs and I don’t think they should be legal!
Attorney: Yes, that’s why they are illegal, and why we’re here today.
That person was chosen for the jury. And it isn’t the only time I’ve seen this happen. The stupider the question or answer, the more likely a person was to be chosen. I quickly realized that lawyers insist on being smarter than the jury. If they choose you, you’ve likely been insulted.
I was insulted once and had to sit on a jury for a civil case. It was a one-day trial in which a guy whose car was hit from behind said he had whiplash and was suing the other driver for medical costs plus $10,000 for pain and suffering. He wore a foam neck brace.
In the couple of hours it took everyone to tell their story, we discovered:
his car was barely tapped in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, and neither car sustained any damage. Photos showed not one dent or scratch.
after the tap, the drivers exchanged info, and the plaintiff then ran some errands before continuing on to work.
once there, he called his wife, who told him to immediately call a lawyer; not a doctor.
he contacted a firm called—I’m not kidding—Auto Accident and Injury Compensation Lawyers.
the lawyer told him to go directly to a business establishment called—I’m still not kidding—Auto Accident Compensation Chiropractic, which was in the same building as the law office.
when asked if he’d ever visited a “real” doctor or hospital about his injury, he said no.
When they’d finished, we retired to the jury room to deliberate. How exciting!
As instructed, we took a preliminary vote, and all but two of us voted to award the guy the ten grand. Smoke began shooting out of my ears.
The two of us who voted “no” were the only ones who had been in an auto accident in which we had sustained whiplash injuries. We would have been easy to spot after the results of the first vote were announced as the only people in the room with our mouths hanging open. And the smoke thing I mentioned.
With Henry Fonda’s performance in the classic film Twelve Angry Men as our model, we set out to change the other jurors' minds. Following are a few of the comments a fly on the wall might have heard:
Juror 1: I’ve had whiplash and this guy is lying.
Juror 2: That may be, but my mother taught me not to judge so I won’t say he’s lying.
Juror 3: I don’t think he’s telling the truth either, but when you make a mistake, you’ve got to pay.
Juror 4: It’s not that much money, his insurance will be able to afford it.
Juror 5: This is what insurance is for.
Juror 6: I’ll vote however y’all do, I just want to get home.
****Earlier that morning, when we couple hundred unlucky recipients of jury summonses arrived, we’d been subjected to a boring, outdated video about how being on a jury should make us proud to be Americans. That was not happening to me in the deliberation room.
(Side note: I’m pretty sure that uninspiring video was produced by the same people who made the anti-drug and sex-ed films I’d watched in the sixth grade, and probably also the VD films shown to soldiers during WWII.)
****One by one, we convinced the other jurors that their attitudes were exactly why insurance in the U.S. is so expensive. A vote to award this guy money, we told them, would be a vote for having to pay a bunch of money to some future liar’s ambulance chaser who has accused you of something that didn’t actually harm anyone.
They resisted, but after a couple of hours of the other guy and me assuring them we were prepared to be sequestered in a hotel for weeks before we’d give this jackass any money, they gave in. I guessed they cared more for their free time than for their fantasy of someday suing the shit out of someone and going on a shopping spree at Saks Fifth Avenue.
****
To my great surprise, the losing lawyer called me at home that night to ask why we’d decided against his client. He was friendly and polite and said he just wanted to improve his skills. I politely told him it was because not everyone on the jury was stupid enough to believe their lies, and perhaps he should try honesty.
I believe in the jury system in theory, but to call it justice is a stretch, and to call it fair is miles off the mark. I don’t have a better system to suggest other than to say it might help if lawyers had to also take an oath of honesty and were held accountable when they lied in court.
Yeah, I know how ludicrous that kind of common sense is in today’s America. Any country that would continue to use the Electoral College, for instance, is beyond hope in the logic department. Expecting lawyers to tell the truth in court would be like expecting the Mad Hatter to suddenly regain his senses or the Red Queen to be less of an authoritarian narcissist. Good luck with that.
If such a practice were strictly enforced, it might reduce the lawyer industry by 98%, but Shakespeare would probably be on our side.
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Let’s see what common sense comedy my partner Wayno has displayed in this week’s Bizarro comics…
I love my wife but password sharing is where I draw the line.
They’re going to whisper sweet chuckles into each other’s ears.
My dogs are dropouts but are self-taught in the ways of misbehavior.
I don’t have one of these in my house for the same reason I don’t have a live streaming webcam in my bathroom.
Everything is never enough.
This carload of honkers marks the end of our cartoon stroll today. Thanks for sticking around until the exhaust clears. If you enjoy our work and that we post it for free, perhaps consider helping us keep it that way with a friendly holiday donation via one of the links below. We’ll love you for who you are.
Until next week, if your car is full of geese, invest in some washable seat covers.
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