American Justice: 'The Jury Pool From Hell'

Two weeks ago in Memphis, Tennessee, prospective jurors showed up for a trial.

One candidate stood up during jury selection, announced, "Judge, I'm on morphine and I'm higher than a kite," then walked out of the courtroom.

Apparently he wasn't stopped by the bailiff.

Another stated he had alcohol problems, then reminisced about getting arrested for trying to pick up an undercover police officer posing as a hooker.

"I should have known something was up," the man said. "This woman had all her teeth."

When the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Amy Weirich, asked if anyone on the panel of prospective jurors had been convicted of a crime, one man said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew.

He said he had been provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed.

The defense attorney for the case to be tried, Leslie Ballin, dubbed the group "the jury pool from hell."

Perhaps the comment of yet another prospect will shed more light on Ballin's characterization.

This candidate volunteered that he probably should not be on the jury because "In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin as your lawyer, you're probably guilty."

The events in the case for which the prospective jurors had been called had taken place in a Tennessee trailer park.

A woman was accused of hitting her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick.

The woman, Ballin's client, was found not guilty.

[via Manuel Roig-Franzia, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press]