As anyone who has seen the Pauly Shore documentary Jury Duty knows, our legal system can sure be a strange beast. Sometimes people die to get out of jury duty, sometimes they fake being racist, and sometimes sometimes very good dogs are called in to serve their country. That's what happened to German Shepherd IV Griner, who was recently summoned by the Cumberland County Clerk of Courts. "I got the mail and I look at it, and I’m like IV Griner, this is my dog’s name," said the dog's owner, Barrett Griner.
"I’m wondering like, What is this? Something from the county office about her vaccinations or something? Like, why is my dog getting mail?" Griner told NBC. As for how the mix-up occurred, it's all because of the IV: Griner's full name is Barrett Griner IV. He named his female dog IV (as in Ivy) as a "play on words."
"This happens many times," explained Cumberland County Judiciary Coordinator Dennis Moffa, who said all jury summonses are computer-generated. "As an example, if you had John Henry IV, sometimes the notice might just say Henry IV. I think that the computer probably randomly picks some things that are probably not as on point as they should be." Griner says he's previously received jury summonses that included his full name, so he still isn't sure whether he was called this time or not.
"She [the dog] might be good for a cat burglar case or something like that," Griner added. "The whole thing was just really, really funny." And now we'll spend the rest of today picturing what an all-dog jury might look like. Probably something like this:
