All the songs that I sing are love songs

When you vote:

Keep your “i voted” sticker

Put it on your hand

Take a pic of your hand next to a pic of your blog header

Send it to me as a direct message

And I will give you:

A unique sketch of your choice of pokemon

A 30-second electric kazoo recording of your favorite bit of a song to use as a ringtone

A 100-ish word short story on the topic of your choice

An extremely cute picture of my very adorable dog.

My bribes to you will be posted publicly but you will be notified privately if you want. If you don’t want me to share your name or photo just say so and I’ll message you instead of tagging you but I want to tag y’all because I want you to get to brag about the shiny present I gave you to celebrate Voting Day.

If voting is old hat to you, or if you aren’t in the US and you want to celebrate voting day I will give any of the presents above to anyone who makes at least a $5 donation to the ACLU (if you do that one screencap your donation confirmation and your blog in the same window and message it to me)

Please fucking vote. I love you.

It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why: 

(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)

1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty.  Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury.  What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges.  Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.

Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it.  Yes, even on facebook.  This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal.  Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS. 

2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively.  The voir dire process in MD works like this:

A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors.  These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above).  Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have. 

B)  So we’re at jury selection.  Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating). 

B1) “striking” means asking to get rid of a juror.  A strike can be peremptory, i.e., you can strike for whatever reason you want and don’t have to justify it, automatically. Or you can have a strike FOR CAUSE.   There are a limit to how many peremptory strikes/challenges you can have, depending on the jurisdiction, and the type of crime.  And you may or may not have to justify those strikes and turn them into “for cause.” 

B2) generally if, during a question, a juror answers in the affirmative, the judge will ask you to go up to the bench to privately discuss it with the judge, and both attorneys.  In this case they will ask if you or somebody you know was a victim.  They will also ask if the incident occurred in the same jurisdiction and possibly involved the same arresting officers.  They will THEN ask you if you feel so strongly that it will affect your ability to be IMPARTIAL–that is, will you still be able to only consider the facts presented to you in the court, and be able to judge something as proven beyond a reasonable doubt or not, or will you be biased? 

B3) If you say “I am so biased” then yeah, the judge will excuse you right away.  But if you say “No I think I can do it. I can be impartial.” you’ll be asked to return to your seat. 

C) The questions are now done.  The attorneys then go through their strikes.  Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones.  And there are other limits too.  You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney.  There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row).  Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not.  So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s  job).  If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way.  If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE). 

————

3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM” 

A)  as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie. 

B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION. 

C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION.  So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.).  And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you. 

D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel.  Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law.  IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job. 

E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so. 

F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.  

——-

I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is.  But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.  

I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work.  Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people? 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job.  Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.  And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. 

THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial.  And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men).  You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit.  It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system.  doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection. 

One of the minor charming things about Kansas City these days is that you can buy local art from vending machines in the airport.

SAGAL: No. I mean, for example, your incredibly successful young adult novel “Coraline” is about a young girl in house in which there’s a hole in the wall that leads to a very mysterious and very evil world. So when you were a kid, is that what you imagined?

GAIMAN: When I was a kid, we actually lived in a house that had been divided in two at one point, which meant that one room in our house opened up onto a brick wall. And I was convinced all I had to do was just open it the right way and it wouldn’t be a brick wall. So I’d sidle over to the door and I’d pull it open.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: And it was always a brick wall.

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: But it was one of those things that as I grew older, I carried it with me and I thought, I want to send somebody through that door. And when I came to write a story for my daughter Holly, at the time she was a 4 or 5-year-old girl. She’d come home from nursery. She’d seen me writing all day. So she’d come and climb on my lap and dictate stories to me. And it’d always be about small girls named Holly.

SAGAL: Right.

When an animal has suffered and the owner asks me if this is the case, I may approach the situation in one of two ways.

If the animal suffered, and I have been telling the humans it is likely to suffer or actively suffering but they ignore my professional recommendations, deny treatment, or otherwise bury their head in the sand, I tell them that yes, it suffered. They do not get a free pass on their guilt from me to do that again.

If the human has earnestly tried to do everything right, then yes the animal likely did suffer, but you have done everything anyone ever could to minimize and prevent that.

I will not lie, that is one principle I cannot allow myself to compromise on, but I can deflect onto what I want that person to focus on. Either they allowed the animal to suffer, or they tried their very darnedest to stop that suffering.