Monterey Bay Forum

Roger Clemens's trial by boredom

The trial of Roger Clemens is in its fifth week — with Brian McNamee, the government’s star witness, now on the stand — and already, two jurors have been dismissed for falling asleep.

The first juror excused by the judge, Reggie Walton of United States District Court, was a 27-year-old chronically unemployed man who was let go last week. During juror questioning, he told prosecutors that he would “rather be asleep” than serve on the jury. In the end, he tried to do both but failed.

But another juror, a young woman who works as a cashier at a supermarket, failed to heed that warning. She nodded off on Monday — the day McNamee, Clemens’s former trainer, began his testimony — and was dismissed by Walton on Tuesday.

It was just last week that Walton scolded the prosecutors and the defense lawyers for asking too many unnecessary questions and boring the jurors so much that they had begun to discuss the case among themselves, which they were told not to do. He even threatened to put a time limit on the trial.

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What a nightmare strategy–bore the jury to sleep. JAJ48@aol.com

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Tags: boredom, Rogers Clemens, trial

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2012 at 10:15 pm and is filed under Crime, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.