Judging from my Google alerts, Judge Robert J. Perry is going to become the latest judge to make the list of judges who are household names. I first ask the question, why is this already being picked up by the international media? Anna Nicole Smith has been dead for over three years, and when alive was a B class celebrity. In fact in death she has become a much bigger celebrity. I had never followed her in life and have heard on numerous occasions that I am not the only one.

Judge Robert Perry is whittling down the jury pool to what might become either Fox News right wing Bible Thumpers or just plain good cons.

A jury of ones peers, well that never happens, ones peers are seldom that. For the most part the only requirement is reading, writing, able to think and being a breathing human being, but in the Anna Nicole Smith case this is about to change.

If you don’t want to serve on this jury here is what you need to do.

1. Bring a large bag of prescription medications and asked to be accommodated like any juror seeking disability accommodations as required by both federal and the laws of most states, even here in backward Texas.

2. Talk incessantly about your own illness, your doctors and most importantly agree to waive your legal rights and spill everything to the judge and lawyers, while the news media is quickly making notes of what you say for their next article, about every ache, pain, medical condition and of course every pill, patch, shot, etc. you have taken in the last few years. In the written jury questionnaire mention the great feeling of the drugs used for your last colonoscopy. Tell them you like that high feeling and that you might abuse cold medication.

3. Be sure and tell them about your grandmother, grandfather, your parents, your brother or sister, hell even throw in aunts, uncles and neighbors who you feel any empathy for due to medical conditions and of course inform this Court of any prescriptions you have ever picked up for anyone.

Now that will get rid of about everyone over the age of fifty-five and any person that feels anything for a fellow human being and the court appears in yesterday’s rulings to guarantee you will be gone within the fist thirty minutes on August 2nd as the jury is being picked.

That leaves the under fifty crowd, watch Fox News, [Infotainment], for your news and already have judged that people who take medications, or are ill, disabled etc. must inherently be bad and it appears you are in like glue on this jury.

How many good potential jurors is this going to exclude in the guise of “getting rid of the kooks” or as Judge Robert Perry stated; “The problem with celebrity trials is it has a tendency to bring out kooks, frankly.”

Now you are down to twenty to forty five year old jurors of your peers. Weed out parents with young children that need care, those who are care providers for the disabled, throw out any juror who questions being drilled about medical conditions and even prescriptions they take. That will whittle it down to the Fox news watchers, Bible thumpers and those with a holier than thou complex or really good cons.

Then you will go through a back ground check by Judge Perry, to be sure you are “clean enough” to be a jury of ones peers.

See there are many ways not to get involved in this mess in California, and who would want to be on this jury? Yes some have illusions of making the news with interviews at the end, but those are going to qualify under these rules. The lawyers will never know your name and the judge’s staff will be browsing the internet to be sure the jurors don’t blog about the case. DO WHAT??? Blog about the case, I thought jurors were not even allowed to talk about the case, read about the case, would that not include blogging in your night time hours???

A bankrupt California state spent most of Tuesday, July 20 discussing Motions related to “…arguments about publicity, the Internet and the effect of social media and blogs on the jury. Judge Perry plans to keep the names of jurors secret from lawyers, who complained that would make it impossible to track whether they were blogging or reporting on the trial via social networking websites. However, Judge Perry did agree to ask prospects if they have blogs or have social media accounts.” You know those pesky networking sites like Face Book, My Space, even LinkedIn which most professionals belong to, in fact just throw out anyone with a home computer to be safe here.

Judge Perry also intends to ask his staff to check periodically to make sure jurors are not blogging about the case. Of course most posters don’t use their real names so the jury should be asked about any monikers ever used on the internet. However this all goes back to I thought you were not suppose to read or discuss a case if you are on that jury, silly me, I am not up with the times of twittering while sitting in Court. Oh yes eliminate everyone with a Twitter account.

I am hoping more courts go in this direction, [said tongue in cheek], it will save all of us in this new era where many of us use Google the AP, the HuffingtonPost.com, The Washington Post.com, The online versions of the Houston Chronicle, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and even Google alerts to get out of jury duty by just confessing these sins. Throw out the fact that for most these are all ways that today’s news junkies get their information. More and more print media is going out of business while the advances in news by internet increases with new technologies and more and more of us turn on our computers to get our news. It appears that is ok with this Judge, however not being in Court yesterday I don’t know this for sure, but to be safe just don’t admit you ever posted a comment on any site whether a reputable news site or TMZ. Better yet, tell the judge you don’t believe in any of these new fangled gadgets, ah no, then you would be in the age group of aches, pains and medications which is automatically excluded. What is a modern day juror to do???

Perry also intends to take the unusual step of checking the names of jurors against criminal records to see if they are hiding anything. If you are a con without a criminal past you are in the jury pool, bring a bathing suit and towel for fun and games for the next six to 10 weeks. However this newest step by Judge Perry creates my next question is criminal as in a speeding ticket or criminal as on parole??? However good cons are going to say the right things if they want on this jury and the honest people who have real doctors, real medical conditions or family members who do, just fill out that form, get your six dollars for the day and you are on your way back to the office or home. Oh be sure you say you believe all policemen and investigators or lie proof and there is a election this year in California, use that as extra “insurance”, [cough cough].

Another tidbit you can do to get out of this jury, whisper the two words that are guaranteed to send you home. What two words can you say that will cause the D. A. and most Judges to go screaming in the night to make sure you are no where near their court room?

Wait for it….

Wait for it….

Jury Nullification… the act of saying this is bullshit. In the old days, our forefathers wanted jurors that went by common sense and their conscious and jury nullification was encouraged to prevent run away legislature or unfair laws. However today, it is a guarantee to get out of jury duty which is why the jury instructions normally says, “you are only to judge this case by the facts involving the law as I instruct you to do”.

John Adams, our second president, had this to say about the juror: “It is not only his right but his duty…to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” That is not true today, if you even admit you know about your right as a citizen on a jury to use exactly what our forefathers wanted, you are practicing jury nullification which is a big no no in today’s society of complex laws and nustso statutes.

Now if Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Smith’s former lawyer-boyfriend Howard K. Stern knowingly fueled a known addict’s addiction and threw caution to the wind, then convict them. That is how it should go down.

If they did more then what is common practice in the world of Hollyweird, then convict them. If you sense a potential juror is a kook, of course dismiss them. That is why there are jury consultants, but don’t trample on privacy laws to be sure you get that Fox News listener and exclude the CNN and MSNBC crowd.

I loved this exchange yesterday as reported by the AP and I bet Harvey Levin and the TMZ.com staff cringed as the AP led with this exchange:

“Rose made the unusual disclosure that she was filing all of her legal documents under seal to keep them from falling into the hands of celebrity website TMZ. The judge said he was going through her sealed motions and unsealing many of them.

“I don’t think you should file under seal just because you don’t want the media to see it,” Perry said.

“Everything I file ends up on TMZ,” Rose said.

“Who cares?” said the judge.

“Our jury pool is out there,” said the prosecutor.

“Do we even want people who watch TMZ on the jury?” asked the judge.

“We’re going to get them,” Rose said.

“I hope not,” said the judge.”

One way to guarantee those people are not part of the jury pool is just ask any potential jurors if they know who or what is TMZ.com.

Does that mean TMZ.com has received a failing grade in intelligent readers? If so the Court should cruise around “T”, at least TMZ has slowly begun to enforce the TOS and Privacy Policy instead of remaining like the wild west of internet posting.

Be sure and print this article and carry it with you the next time you get a jury summons in Hollyweird, where the right wing nut cases and good cons are welcomed as jurors and those “normal people” get sent home.

Ah the joy of doing ones civic duty of serving on a jury.

THIS ARTICLE DOES AND INTENDS TO POINT OUT THE LUNACY OF HOLLYWERID CELEBRITY TRIALS. Because frankly, who the hell would want to serve on one of these juries???

Now on a serious note: Judge Robert J. Perry has a tremendous amount of discretion. Judge Perry is known as a no-nonsense judge with a distinguished legal background as a former federal prosecutor, he is often selected to preside over high profile trials. In Dec. 2009, he barred television cameras and other electronic recording devices from the trial court in another high profile trial reaffirming his penchant for mitigating intense media coverage in the interest of a fair trial in his courtroom.

Perry has been a trial judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court. Since 1992, he has presided over more than 580 felony jury trials, including 237 murder trials, 28 of which were death penalty trials.

He was honored as “Judge of the Year” by the Los Angeles County Bar Association Criminal Justice Section in 2009 and by the Century City Bar Association in 2002. Born and raised in Glendale, California, Judge Perry is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College and Loyola Law School. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles for 12 years, and then was in private practice with Epstein Becker and Green, and later with Douglas Dalton.

In short, you could not ask for a better judge for a criminal high profile case, and he likes Stern’s attorney Steve Sadow, so what more could anyone ask for in this case. Lessons learned over the last three years appear to have paid off in changing the Court back to Judge Perry who presided over the preliminary hearing which means he has the background on this case.
He has also ruled against the prosecution and at times has added lesser charges to jury instructions stating the state had not reached the standard of the charges assistant district attorneys have asked to present to a jury.

Google Judge Perry, he is impressive in the way he handles cases that could become powder kegs of any racial tensions in the past and handled them well.

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©Rose Turner
July 21, 2010
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