By Bonnie C. McGrath
A lawyer with a big smile walked in. “Oh no. Not you,” Scotti said, rolling her eyes. “We don’t have your case anymore. I threw it in the garbage. I don’t ever want to see you again. And I’m not being mean.”
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A month ago a guy named Jim Kielty had jury duty. What he saw he didn’t like. So he wrote Chief Judge Donald O’Connell a letter. He copied a few big shots, and he sent a copy to me. Kielty writes a lot of letters to public servants and politicians and newspapers about things he doesn’t like. Like Ignatius J. Reilly, the cranky protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Kielty observes things, sizes up situations, and causes trouble.
“The bailiff in the courtroom apparently considered herself a humorist and had gratuitous and even insulting comments for many of the would-be jurors assigned to take their places in the jury box and to hear questions from Judge Toney. One man of Asian descent repeatedly had to hear his name purposely mispronounced…”
“After I saw all those lawyers, I started paying bills I didn’t even owe.”
Kielty also told O’Connell that Scotti “had other choice words for other jurors as well, calling one man…a ‘fine looking gentleman.’ He did not look all that flattered.”
