The Foreman's Position 陪審團(tuán)主席

A judge in a small city was hearing a drunk-driving case and the defendant1, who had both a record and a reputation for driving under the influence, demanded a jury trial. It was nearly 4 p. m. and getting a jury would take time, so the judge called a recess2 and went out in the hall looking to impanel anyone available for jury duty. He found a dozen lawyers in the main lobby and told them that they were a jury.

The lawyers thought this would be a novel experience and so followed the judge back to the courtroom. The trial was over in about 10 minutes and it was very clear that the defendant was guilty. The jury went into the jury-room, the judge started getting ready to go home, and everyone waited.

After nearly three hours, the judge was totally out of patience and sent the bailiff into the jury-room to see what was holding up the verdict. When the bailiff returned, the judge said, "Well have they got a verdict yet?"

The bailiff shook his head and said, "Verdict? Hell, they're still doing nominating speeches for the foreman's position!"

在一個(gè)小城市，一位法官正在審理一起酒后駕車案件。被告不僅有過酒后駕車的記錄，而且聲譽(yù)也不是太好，現(xiàn)在只是缺少一個(gè)陪審團(tuán)作出裁決。因?yàn)橐呀?jīng)接近下午四點(diǎn)，找個(gè)陪審團(tuán)來(lái)會(huì)耽誤很多時(shí)間。因此，法官宣布休庭后，就到外面隨便挑選了一些人來(lái)充當(dāng)陪審團(tuán)。剛一出門，他就發(fā)現(xiàn)大 廳剛好有12個(gè)律師，便請(qǐng)求他們充當(dāng)陪審團(tuán)。

聽了法官的話，這些律師們認(rèn)為這將會(huì)是一次新奇的經(jīng)歷，因此，便跟隨法官回到了法庭。不到10分鐘，案子就已接近尾聲，因?yàn)楸桓婷黠@是有罪的。陪審團(tuán)回到陪審室進(jìn)行商議，法官就等著宣布結(jié)果，馬上回家。每個(gè)人都在等待著最后的判決。

大概過了3個(gè)小時(shí)，法官已經(jīng)徹底失去了耐心，便派法警去看看判決為什么耽誤了這么久。當(dāng)法警回來(lái)后，法官問他：“怎么樣?他們是否作出了最后的判決?”

法警搖搖頭說(shuō)：“判決?天啊，他們?yōu)榱送七x陪審團(tuán)主席，還在進(jìn)行演講呢!”