Articles tagged with: Jury
Deliberation, discussion and decision-making: all major factors involved in writing about a legal case that hasn't yet been decided either way. Strangely enough, these things are also associated with the jury in the R Kelly child pornography trial. Would you believe it? Of course, this brings up a wonderful revelation - it shouldn't be too long before hecklerspray can refer to R Kelly in whatever terms we see fit, with the full backing of the law on our side. Yes: the jury have heard the prosecution, the defence, rebuttals, witnesses and counter-cross-ultra-examinations, and they've run off to that room probably occupied by Twelve Angry Men to decide once and for all what the media are allowed to refer to R Kelly as. And probably, more importantly, if the man is to serve jail time or if he is cleared of the charges held against him. The future looks bright.
Picking a jury for the R Kelly child porn trial must be an unrelentingly difficult procedure. The process involves weeding out those who really like R Kelly, those who really hate R Kelly, anyone who's formed an opinion about R Kelly based on the mountain of press he's received over his alleged underage sex tape, those who like the idea of watching child porn a little too much and those who did all of the above on purpose to get them out of jury service. But, despite all that, three jurors have been chosen for the R Kelly child porn trial. The big news, however, is that yesterday R Kelly sat next to a toilet and the poo-stink went up his nose and he got all sad. No, really.
Forget believing he can fly or finding ever-more inventive ways to compare his willy to a car key in songs, R Kelly is only really good at one thing. And that's delaying the start of his child pornography trial. For the last six years, R Kelly has kept inventing clever new tricks to put off the trial again and again - but it looks as though his luck might have run out. At last, tomorrow will see the commencement of the jury selection process for R Kelly's child pornography trial, effectively locking a start date down for good. And, oh boy, is that going to be one lucky jury - the judge has ruled that R Kelly's apparently incriminating underage sex tape can be shown in open court. High fives to agreeing to watch a 14-year-old girl get urinated on by R Kelly! Anyone? No?
The Cannes Film Festival is the most famous film festival in the world, where every year a jury chooses a film that nobody has seen and says how much better it is than all the films you've seen put together.
And this year the Cannes Film Festival is going to be extra special because the head of the Cannes jury has been announced as Sean Penn. As one of the most respected actors and directors working in Hollywood today, Sean Penn's appointment will mean that the movie he awards his prize to will get an even bigger publicity boost than usual. It also means that anyone who's recently made a movie that's funny, uplifting, deft or about anything other than how terrible the Iraq war is should probably stay at home this year because they ain't winning jack.
