Kerry Serves as Jury Foreman
 

Kerry wins election...as jury foreman

Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Posted: 10:26 a.m. EST (15:26 GMT)

BOSTON (AP) -- Sen. John Kerry's public profile and prosecutorial past didn't spare him from performing that most mundane of civic responsibilities -- jury duty.

Kerry was not only chosen this week to sit on a jury in Suffolk Superior Court, but also was elected foreman.

The case involved two men who sued the city for injuries suffered in a 2000 car accident involving a school principal. The Kerry-led jury rejected their claim Tuesday, and his fellow jurors said the state's junior senator was a natural leader.

"I just found him to be a knowledgeable, normal person," said Cynthia Lovell, a nurse and registered Republican who says she now regrets voting for President Bush in last year's election. "He kept us focused. He wanted us all to have our own say."

This is the Peter Principal at work.

The citizens of Mass. thought that Kerry was Senatorial material, and some red staters thought he was Presidential material, but the Peter Principal - that a man rises to his level of incompetence - has proven them wrong.

His highest level of competence is jury foreman, as these citizens say.

PS: also heard that his "wife" has abandoned his last name, now that the campaign is over. And congratulations to him for his service in Vietnam.

Very strange to pick anyone with so much as a college degree for a jury.

I guess the lawyers on both sides saw the opportunity to get their names in the paper?

Interesting comment. I've got a college degree and have served jury duty.

I thought I'd be passed over because I worked in a TV newsroom, but wasn't.

Actually, DA, it IS somewhat rare for someone who has a certain amount of celebrity and/or education to be selected for jury duty. I forget the exact odds, but they're not good.

I agree with you about the lawyers seizing an opportunity.

The lawyers I'm around (and that is a lot of lawyers) and my professors are pretty insistant that the best jurors are the ones that know the least about the case -- ignorance is bliss.

You want to be able to shape their perceptions as much as possible.

Isn't Kerry a lawyer? In many states (mine) you can't have lawyers on juries.

Pretty sure he is a former prosecutor -- doesn't it say that above somewhere?

You apparently can serve in Colorado. Last time I went, the Chief Judge in that jurisdiction came in and talked to us while we were waiting to see if we would get a case and told us that he had served on a jury in the area in which he lived.

Lol. At least he got elected for something.

I heard about the name drop thing the other day and cracked up. Kerry is such a loser.

This is fairly unbelievable to me.

The guy is called to perform his civic duty, which is to appear for jury duty.

A lot of people in his place would have tried to, or gotten out of it.

In fact, a lot of people would have tried to do that, period.

He showed up and did his duty, and all we can do is sit back and take cheap shots.

If I was trying to get some rich city to pay in a court case, I'd want a bunch of libs on the jury who act on their feelings - "I feel he was damaged, and needs to be helped" - regardless of the facts.

"all we can do is sit back and take cheap shots." Welcome to GC.

Hoosier... so I take it that you don't like Kerry very much?

Where would you get that idea?

Just think of my posts as "equal time"

Since the conservatives on GC are outnumbered 50-2 (possible even 100-2), and there's not one known moderator who even knows a conservative, someone has too sacrifice everyone's love and affection and post conservative. Just before he died, Ronald Reagan appointed me for life to be a conservative GC poster.

PS: During my earlier days, I once spoke to Herman B Wells - a Sigma Nu and the most pro-fraternity major Univ. pres. ever. I think he was a liberal dem, though.

Actually you should be more precise hooiser - rabid conservatives or neo-cons are outnumbered 100-2 or so on GC... not conservatives as a whole - it's just you seem to have no patience for the other branches of conservativism.

Not really. I am a conservative. I just think a lot of conservatives on GC are not truly political conservatives.

Not one known moderator who even knows a conservative? Well, I'm the Sigma Nu moderator, and a self-professed conservative. I guess that counts?

The difference is that each party puts out some things that can be looked upon by their respective members as viable ideas/products. There are other things that are simply handouts to special interest groups -- the religious wack jobs for the (R) party vs the environmentalist/socialist folks on the (D) side.

There's a point where you have to realize that Republicans are not conservatives and Democrats are not liberals -- the respective parties are just team names. Their platforms have become so diluted because of each group's respective effort to enlarge its 'tent' that for any one individual to blindly parrot the party line either means that the individual doing so is incapable of thinking for themselves, too lazy to do so, or they are simply guilty of being willfully ignorant.

Parties aren't interested in the common good, they're interested in power.

Quote:

PS: During my earlier days, I once spoke to Herman B Wells - a Sigma Nu and the most pro-fraternity major Univ. pres. ever. I think he was a liberal dem, though.

He passed away a couple of years ago. From what I understand, he was a terrific man.

I think there are a lot of fiscal conservatives here. This is a pretty educated crowd compared to the general public, so you won't find a lot of religious "conservatives" here.

You My Greek Brother Hit The Nail On the Head Again!

Just what is not Needed is anymore Liberals!



What is the Most Amazing Thing, is that some are going to Grad. School. SDome have just started New Jobs, Try running a small business when everytime You turn around You get a Friggen Kick In The Teeth with a New Tax.

Love Bushes New tAX PROGRAM. SCREWED AGAIN!:mad: Oh Ney, If You do not own a House, Then Then You have no Clue!:(

How Much Interest Do You Get Off Of Buying a Car?:mad:

Is your point that religiously conservative people are not educated?

By the way, Hoosier, I think there may be more conservatives on here than you think, but they find discussing politics on a message board a bad idea. I am sure there are plenty of liberals who feel the same way. The anonymity that the internet provides gives opponents in any hot button topic a lot of false courage, making a good old-fashioned political sparring session turn way too ugly. Also, some people reserve MB discussions for lighter fare. :)

I think the point was since he put conservative in quotation marks he was implying they weren't really conservatives - or a backhanded reference to the so-called "religious right"; not those that are religiously conservative.

Personally I interpreted to mean that since many on GC are highly educated you won't find to many of the: Creationist/Literal Interpretation of the Bible/Jesus was 'White'/Natural Disasters are God's Wrath - crowd.

Not necessarily. Let's just say that when you have a crowd like this, your conservatives will generally draw their values more from their belief in a meritocratic society rather than their religious beliefs. My observation is that this belief in a meritocratic society stems from that individual's success or hope for success because of their above average efforts and abilities.

The religious right folks are a group that has become louder and louder within the conservative coalition. So much so that I think that they run a pretty good chance of tearing it apart by disturbing the libertarian underpinnings of the conservative movement. There are a lot of us in the party that want the government to stay out of our classrooms, to not infringe on a woman's right to choose, to not decide whether two people should be wed based on what appears in some religious tome, etc. Perhaps calling those people 'uneducated' was taking it too far. I know of no real information to support that allegation. But as to Hoosier's complaint that no mods are conservative, I think his statement is wrong. We are conservative, not just his type of conservative (whatever type that is).

A national talk show host said the other day that he has his email filtered, and any email containing "neo-con" is sent straight to the trash bin. It means nothing, and is just hate speech.

Also, glad to discover a conservative moderator - a rare animal.

I think that is an important point on conservatives across the board here, since some people tend to lump us all together. We don't all think the same way on every issue.

Also, RACooper, are you equating rabid conservatives with neo-conservatives? I had always thought that the first neo-conservatives were Democrats who had moved to the Republican party during the Nixon administration. Although they were rather hawkish on foreign policy, they also rejected small government, especially when it comes to social issues. I could be wrong though; my history degree could be failing me on this one.

Nope - as you'll note I said "or"; because they both represent different aspects of the American conservative spectrum... both roughly out on the fringe, in only that they don't represent the majority of conservatives - they just seem to be the most vocal or at least the ones that can out yell others. For example to me the rabid conservatives are the ones that are fanatically partisan willing to believe only the evil in other political parties, while only seeing the best in theirs...

It's just I don't see conservatives as some giant monolithic entity - might have to do with enduring some Canadian Conservative Party policy and nomination rallies...

I'm trying to remember the term used to describe neo-cons back around the Nixon era... the Prof. said something about liberals that got mugged or raped by reality - or something like that.