How to Avoid Being a Harvey Weinstein Juror

Do’s and Don’ts When You’re in Voir Dire

Welcome back to Geoff Rodkey’s Bad Advice! Today’s column is a bit of a departure, in that nobody’s specifically asked me how to get out of jury duty on a Harvey Weinstein rape trial.

But I DID just spend three days in that jury pool, and I think you can benefit from my experience. Because there have been so many Weinstein rape trials—the one I was dismissed from yesterday is his third, and there’s no sign anybody involved plans to stop at three—that no matter what jurisdiction you live in, the odds are pretty good that sooner or later, you’re going to wind up in a Harvey Weinstein jury pool, too.

For three whole days, I got to use the north entrance

So if you don’t want to spend six-plus weeks of your life sitting silently in a chair listening to some very upsetting testimony that may or may not include graphic descriptions of Harvey Weinstein in a state of arousal, it’s worth reading this to the end.

The irony is that unlike most of my fellow jurors, I actually wanted to get picked. Trial by jury is one of the bedrock institutions of a free society, and I would’ve been both humbled and honored by the opportunity to undertake the solemn civic responsibility of fairly and impartially weighing the evidence in this case.

I also thought I could get a book deal out of it. But I think the detailed notes I planned to take at every stage of the proceedings would’ve only made me a better juror.

Unfortunately, my voir dire interview last Thursday afternoon went so badly that I’m certain the judge, the prosecution, and the defense were unanimous in not wanting me anywhere within a hundred yards of the jury box. The only thing I can’t understand is why they kept me around for two more days after that.

Here’s how I got off the wrong foot with the judge: when he asked, “Will any prior knowledge you have about the defendant prejudice you in any way?” I was supposed to reply with an emphatic “No” rather than a wishy-washy “I don’t think so.”

But when the judge unfavorably compared my answer to that of an airline pilot who, upon being asked by a passenger whether the plane he’s piloting will crash, answers “I don’t think so,” I’d argue he was making a very flawed analogy. Unless I’m mistaken, at the beginning of their work day, airline pilots aren’t forced to watch a video about implicit bias that’s purposefully designed to make them second-guess their ability to keep the plane in the air.

It seems very unfair to penalize me for having actually paid attention to the implicit bias video.

It was slightly less unfair for the judge to ask if I had any lingering resentments based on my having been a working screenwriter during the years when Harvey Weinstein was running Miramax, a company that never hired me for anything, not even a day of punch-up. And I was being scrupulously honest when I said no, because I worked all that shit out with my twelve-step sponsor a long time ago.

Then the prosecutor started questioning me, and things really went off the rails. When she asked if I or anyone I knew had ever been accused of misconduct under the umbrella of what she called “The Me Too Movement,” I don’t think she was expecting me to confess to a thirty-year friendship with Al Franken.

But, again, I was being scrupulously honest. Just like I was when she said, “You’re not going to write a comedy sketch about this, are you?” and I said, “No, not a comedy sketch.”

Because a book is not a comedy sketch. For one thing, you can get paid a lot more money for a book.

By the time the defense got to me, I think everybody understood they were beating a dead horse. So when Weinstein’s attorney asked what general impression of his client I’d formed based on my professional experience, and I answered, “He was widely considered to be a bully,” it was really just icing on the cake.

Again: I don’t know why it took them two full days to send me home after that train wreck. But New York State pays forty bucks a day for jury duty, which takes some of the sting out of my loss of income from the tell-all book I can no longer write.

And here’s the really good news for YOU, as a prospective Weinstein juror: I’m pretty sure just reading this article has disqualified you from future service. When they asked us in the group interview where we get our news from, one guy answered, “I don’t follow the news.”

He got picked. He’s one of the alternates now. I’m pretty jealous. But I’m also looking forward to reading his book.

Thanks for your interest in my bad advice! As always, if you have a question, please ask! There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.