Let's say you want to make as many Americans as possible use the phrase "jury duty" in a sentence on the same day. Do you:
1. Issue a colorful new jury duty postage stamp, with ceremony and fanfare?
2. Introduce a bill that would exempt nursing mothers from jury duty, causing the world to wonder why they were ever required to go in the first place?
3. Release a major poll on Americans' attitudes toward jury duty?
or
4. Subpoena Madonna for jury duty, and time it so that she'll show up only a few hours after her Academy Awards party breaks up, looking fabulous in "dark brown velour Juicy Couture sweatsuit, sunglasses, tennis shoes and an oh-so-glam Juror badge." (That's from breathless TMZ on the scene.)
It's #4, of course. I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with celebrity jury duty; it must be because it's a moment when the stars' lives are a little like ours. My feed reader includes a standing search for "jury duty," and when Madonna or Jennifer Lopez or Brad Pitt or Jimmy Johnson or even NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray go to court, I'm flooded with stories.
Maybe there's an angle here for courts dealing with reluctant jurors. I wonder how many celebrity jurors we would need before people lined up outside the courthouse asking to be allowed to serve.
(Photo by Philipp Naderer at http://www.flickr.com/photos/triotex/426476914/; license details there.)
