How to Get Out of Jury Duty, Kanye West Edition

Who the fuck is this guy?

An alternate on the jury in the latest police brutality trial was booted this morning by a judge who did not care for her "Who the Fuck Is Kanye West" T-shirt. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber, who is apparently a huge Kanye fan, cleared the courtroom the moment he saw 19-year-old Nneka Eneorj's shirt. "Do you think it's appropriate to wear a shirt that says 'fuck' on it in my courtroom?" the judge asked, with "anger in his voice" according to the Post.

Eneorj started to explain that she thought it was okay because she had a sweater on (a cardigan that didn't cover the front of the shirt), but the judge cut her off—just like Kanye would— and said, "You're excused." Still, the last word was hers; on her way out she remarked, "Sounds like a personal problem." Outside the courtroom, tabloid photographers followed her, taking her photo as the physical therapy student ranted rather incoherently, "It's supposed to be a First Amendment issue...But I stay apart. I don't open my mouth...They'd better give me my check back."

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By John Del Signore in News on June 24, 2010 2:57 PM

Comments [rss]

inoyourider

It is a personal problem, she's a piece of garbage.

potsmoker

i didnt say she was arrested, i just said that it was perfectly legal and a SCOTUS first ammendment issue.

yes the judge can decide on matters of decorum and its probably bad taste for a member of the jury or a spectator to wear that shirt, ejection - fine, arrest no.

i was just giving some relevant history to the word F-CK on display in a courtroom.

sj

Potsmoker, great landing, wrong airport.

She wasn't arrested and her speech was not being criminalized. The judge was merely (and correctly) pointing out that the shirt wearer was a classless douchebag. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

m015094

Oh my God.....a comment with thought and reason. Thank you potsmoker for bringing some intelligence to this thread.

chunk

Hunh? Even overlooking the quasi-English of "constructed in three major points," potsmoker displays the legal analysis skills of a soggy pretzel. Cohen deals with criminal sanctions for speech. Here, the judge merely lectured the juror. And if you are capable of wrapping your mind around that distinction, I'm happy to explain why Cohen also doesn't have anything to say about judges throwing people in jail for vulgarity in the courtroom based on their contempt powers. Good luck with that "pre-law" major.

potsmoker

Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with freedom of speech.

On April 26, 1968, Paul Robert Cohen, 19, was arrested for wearing a jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft" inside the Los Angeles Courthouse. Inside the court room he had the jacket folded over his arm, only after exiting the room he put the jacket on and was then arrested

The Court, by a vote of 5-4, per Justice John Marshall Harlan II, overturned the appellate court's ruling. "[A]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions," it said, "the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense."

In the opinion Justice Harlan famously wrote "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."

Harlan’s arguments can be constructed in three major points: First, states (California) cannot censor their citizens in order to make a “civil” society. Second, knowing where to draw the line between harmless heightened emotion and vulgarity can be difficult. Thirdly, people bring passion to politics and vulgarity is simply a side effect of a free exchange of ideas—no matter how radical they may be.

longacre

She wasn't arrested, just sent home.

youngpro

And by dismissed, she was sent BACK to the pool of 150+ people only to probably get sent home and just called again the next day. Sucker.

ed_Extinct

first amendment blah blah blah... have some fucking class.

HypocraticOath

A jury of my peers has to include this money-grubbing fool who cant even understand why wearing a shirt like that in public-much less to jury duty- is inappropriate? Jesus...what a fucking moron.