Oh No, Ed Jew!: Juror
Look what we just got in the SFist editor's inbox!! Jury Duty with Ed Jew! This juror, being a good citizen, had to wait two days before the case resolved before being able to talk to us about it. We love you, juror reader!
By now, you’ve heard it reported that Ed Jew got called up for Jury Duty on Monday. Well, I was actually in his juror pool and got to see the whole thing go down! I was selected (he wasn’t. Something about residency, I guess?) so I have been unable to discuss it. But the parties settled yesterday, so the story of My Jury Duty With Ed Jew can now be told!I started seeing him several times early Monday morning waiting his turn in the basement Juror Assembly Room at 400 McAllister. Every time I walked by him, I thought, "Haha! That guy totally looks like Ed Jew. Haha!" It’s kind of dark down in that basement area, and I had trouble distinguishing things. And why wouldn’t I? I had just smoked an enormous doobie walking from Civic Center to the Superior Court house.
But when we both got called up in the afternoon, to the bright lights and smaller quarters of an individual court room, it was unmistakable. Granted, he has gotten remarkably good at glancing back discouragingly at people who stare at him thinking, "Holy f***! Is that Ed Jew?" But I got in enough stares to know it was him. Hilariously, there was actually a moment at which the judge asked aloud, "Is anyone here not a resident of San Francisco?" Of course at that moment, Ed Jew doesn’t do or say s***.
And then the bomb that everyone in that court room who reads the papers or just loves his name is waiting for finally drops.
So what happened??? Click on the jump!
I'm already stuck in the juror box, and both attorneys have had their chance to dismiss. They didn’t dismiss me, but they did others, and the replacement names start getting called up."Jew, Edmond…"
It’s had to imagine that a painfully uncomfortable silence can break out in a room that has been pretty much silent for hours. Suddenly several sessions of whispering chatter start among the potential jurors, and there has been no whispering chatter at anyone else’s name before now I can assure you. The judge has the wide-eyed "Holy f***! That is Ed Jew!" moment that most of us jurors have already had, but she plays it off well with a generic "Hi" and a smile to him.
The case is a civil trial involving -- wait, what do you care? You just want more Ed Jew!
He is now in the jury box, and several of us are quietly going nuts over the prospect we could actually be on a jury with Ed Jew at the height of the Ed Jew scandal. The judge will not have it. She pulls both attorneys out of the room and excuses herself as well, leaving Ed Jew to put on a clinic in squirming uncomfortably in his chair, visibly, in the juror box. They all reappear within two minutes, and the judge calls Ed Jew up to her bench individually. Keep in mind that thus far, she has been a major hardass about excusing anyone.
So there’s Ed Jew and the judge, whispering to each other at the bench, both working really hard to maintain diplomatic smiles. It is clearly something of a nightmare situation for both of them. The only thing we can make out is when she says "Thank you." And he bolts right the f*** out of the room, without even getting his Juror Badge number checked off. Which you are supposed to do.
Some other sap got called up in his place, and that’s the story of my jury duty with Ed Jew.
