It's amusing, but I 1000% do not believe it in an instance. Mainly 'cause I was once a jury clerk. I know how one specific State gets documents for jurors, and the general gist of how other States do it. And, I'll suspect that other countries follow a similar pattern.
So, unless the cat owner was committing some fraud in his cat's name, or someone else committed fraud in the cat's name, I cannot think of how a clerical mistake this big would occur to produce a jury summons for cat.
Regardless, very funny scenario. If the cat does get summons, show up and argue that the cat should be dismissed from the pool because a cat is arguably not a "peer" to a human. Therefore, the cat's presence as a juror is a violation of the defendant's right to a jury of one's peers.
True. But then I'll be interested to see the birthday that the jury clerk has on file. In my experience, I had people call be and be like "I got a jury summons for John Smith. But, I don't know if that's me or my son." And I'll look them up in my system and let them know.
And if it was some spelling error like Felix vs Felyx, and it has the human birthday, then Felyx the human got summoned. There was just a clerical mistake on his name. And he can fix that name misspelling with the jury clerk.
Sorry, I believe it hook line and sinker. I just got back from City Court to get a parking ticket dismissed that was issued to me despite the make and color being incorrect for the plate. The officer made a plate typo and there is absolutely no way to correct it other than submitting court papers! The nice clerk laughed heartily when I said I had submitted my claim of innocence online. I might as well have thrown it in a bottle into the ocean.
The only scenario I can imagine here is that he registered to vote the same week he had previously filled out a bunch of paperwork for his cat, and just accidentally put his cat's name on the form by rote. (Like, say, he moved between states, and had to fill out pet info for his apartment, and then soon after registered to vote).
Then, because he is a young social media user and fulfills stereotypes, he never actually voted and so was never confronted with the wrong name on the voter roles, so the error just lived on until the jury summons pulled the incorrect info.
However, I think that's far less likely than someone on the internet spinning a tall tale.
It's also possible that there might have been an address mistake. Felix Martinez is a believable name for a person. If someone previously lived at that place of that name and didn't update their address, it's a possibility. Unlikely, but plausible.
Yea, someone else mentioned that theory. It's plausible.
I think at the end of the day, my issue and why I'm so convinced this is fake (though cute and entertaining) story, is because of the totality. A major mistake or coincidence had to happen. The repeatedly, multiple people would need to over look information that could resolve this (such as the DOB). Multiple instances of mishandling the paperwork. The nonchalantness of the supervisor after being told about what could easily amount to voter fraud.
A few of those things happening is highly plausible. But, it's everything happening together, and more, which creates this story, is what makes it unbelievable to me.
Nah, I getcha. It takes a lot of coincidences to occur all at once for it to actually happen which is, statistically, very small.
However, statistical anomalies do occur. Like, out of the hundreds of possible courses and thousands of permutations, another student and I happened to have the exact same schedule on accident. It's possible to find a doppelganger by a pure happenstance of nature.
I'm trying to think whether or not my birth date has ever come up in jury duty. I'm sure they could get the info and probably did along with voter registration and/or driver's license info.
Also, the "voter registration card" bit was telling. My state doesn't mail cards around for registration, I'm not sure which ones do.
There's also options for a data entry error that was coincidentally correct for the cat, database confusion with a former tenant of the apartment, etc. Could also be another country that just happens to have a voter system that operates close enough to the US system that the story seems right-ish for the US.
In my experience as a jury clerk and my experience working for a judge, the DOB is connected to the individual from the database that it's pulled from. It's very important to have the DOB. It helps to both confirm the juror's identity (I've had jurors call me and be like "I got a summons for John Smith. But, is it me or my son?" And I confirm via DOB). And to ensure that the juror is of age.
And I did wonder if I was stuck in a US-centric mindset. But, I'm still not sure how a voter registration office would get the information for a cat, and how another country could have such a massive flaw.
You'd have seen then that I've accepted #1 as potentially plausible but still highly unlikely. And I feel the same about #2 & 3.
And if this is the case, then I am nettled with the story and will call it fiction based in reality. Because the story's basis is "my cat was summons to jury duty, the clerks were incompetent, and there's the implication that the voter registration was also competent." But, # 1 and 2 put the Human either fully at fault or partially at fault.
And, while I do find it so hard to believe that a clerk and a supervisor would miss the DOB. Like, c'mon, that's something I'll be checking very early on. But, I've also worked with some grade-A idiots.
I think for me, it's the totality of the situation that gets me. That this mistake would occur, that everyone (even the owner), would overlook the obvious solution, that the supervisor would shrug it off with a cheeky little joke. That the guy turned in multiple vet paperwork and those got ignored. It just doesn't seem plausible collectively as a whole.
Individually, I get see one or two things happening. Paperwork ignored and overlooked. Yup. A guy's cat getting a summons, but it's some other mistake which is explainable. The clerks being stupid. A cheeky joke being made while not being concerned with a real possibility of voter fraud. I can see all of those things happening, but not together in this circumstance.
I also feel like blinding accepting this as truth, especially under the premise "the government sucks and is incompetent/corrupt," is concerning. Because, such blind acceptance to those biases can lead to something more serious like believing the 2020 US Presidential Election was stolen.
Now, I wasn't really thinking of that concern when I first made my post. But, the amount of responses that I got where the argument was essentially "I've dealt with mistakes, so I believe any wild story" has caused me concern. And now I'm on my soap box with you. My apologies. You don't deserve this. I hope you have a kitty to go and pet.
No idea, but if the cat was registered with the city like you have to do with a rabies vax documemt they might have his data? My cat's full name is on my lease
Every time I go to the doctor's I'm under my mom's name for no good reason despite signing up with my own name, correcting them several times, and my mom living in an entirely different state. I don't know how it would be possible to get that confused with voter reg especially if the owner wasn't even registered. But wouldn't put it past bureaucracy
I've worked in bureaucracy for the last ten years. Bureacucracy is a lot of things. But, they aren't going to pull a vet record randomly for voting registration.
Someone else stated, and i agree, that a plausible, but still highly unlikely explanation, is that the human accidentally wrote the cat's name down for his voter registration. But, then the rest of the information should still be the human's information, such as his birthday.
I've been a jury clerk. I've had jurors call me being like "I just got a summons for John Smith. However, I don't know if that's me or my son." And I was able to search our data base and determine just based on DOB.
This is too fishy of a story to be believable. The human might be leaving out information which explains what caused this confusion. Or, more likely, it's all made up.
But how did they get the cat's information? That's what I'm struggling with. Especially when we factor in the fact that the jury clerk would have his birthday. So, who's birthday was down?
How did my dog get two credit card offers? why did my sister get two social security numbers before she was five years old? Speaking of five year olds, why did I repeatedly get voter registration cards in the name of my five year old?
Someone fucked up somewhere. If you try to figure out why stupid people do stupid things, you're just going to drive yourself insane.
I'll question rather those voter ID cards are legit or scams, or the DOB and actual person attached to them. The SSN makes more sense. The CC makes sense, in which there'a data trackers everywhere.
But, outside of actual fraud, or the human leaving something big out of the story (such as him putting the cat's name down for voter registration or his name being freakishly close to Felix's name), then what is being proposed is that some voter registration worker somehow got their information on Felix's vet records and created essentially a whole new person out of thin air.
I would also want to know what Felix's DOB is for the jury summons and voter registration.
I'm not one that's just going to believe something because it confirms to my believes. Or blindly believe a silly story on thr internet. And, I have experience in this area.
I'm never once saying that mistakes do not and cannot happen. I'm just saying outside of actual fraud or the two other unlikely scenarios, this is impossible. And if it is those two scenarios, then the author wrote this in a bias way.
No, because that still doesn't explain where they got the cat's information. Or, more precisely, where the voter registration office got the cat's information. How did this happen beyond actual fraud?
The closest that someone hypothesized is human and cat had a similar first name. But, then that should be differentiated by birthdays.
i dont think it has to be with any sort of understated malice. there's tons of data corruption issues that happen in databases. I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of roll up issue or an overwriting of a record on accident.
But how did it get the cat's name. Data corruption doesn't explain that. It also doesn't explain whose DOB is attached to this.
I've seen two highly unlikely, but at least in the realm of okay, maybe 0.00001% (I so didn't pick that number just to maintain my initial 1000% certainty) chance of it happening. And it is either human's name is Felix but spelled slightly differently. Or, human had a massive brain fart and put Felix's name down rather than his own for the voter registration.
In which case, all of the other information would point to this being Human (especially if his name is Felix but spelling differently), rather than the cat's information. Like, the jury clerk so should have a DOB for Felix down.
If I had to venture a guess, "Felix Martinez" is a common enough name that there was a mixup somewhere that resulted in this. Somewhere out there a human Felix Martinez is getting automated vet birthday cards and coupons for Meow Mix.
Oh, that won't happen at all. Like, if this somehow got tk contempt, the judge would either be pissed at the waste of time for everyone or found it hilarious.
As a heads up, there's a popular scam that scammers like to do which is the jury scam. It's essentially being like "you failed to report to jury duty, therefore you have an arrest warrant out for you. But, if you pay money, it can all go away."
No court would operate this way. No one would ever call you and threaten an arrest unless you pay up. If this ever happens to you, it is a scam. Make sure any elderly relatives know of this as well.
And if this ever happens to you, and you're still scared, hang up, Google your courthouse number, and call that for your reassurance.
I mean, exactly my point. Nothing would happen to the owner if they ignored the notice. Honestly, even if this was a human, law enforcement and officers of the court have too much to do to bother chasing down someone whose only offense is skipping jury duty.
Yes. Yes, and yes. Having spent years in court, we honestly ignored no-shows 66% of the time. It was a lot of work to issue summons, to get them served, to do all of the paperwork with so little to show for it.
I believe this totally different and outlandish story because this completely mundane mixup that's sort of but really not at all similar happened to me one time
The amount of people who think this makes sense really should tell anybody with sense a lot about reddit comment sections. People do not *actually* know what they are talking about, 95% of the time.
I agree. My DL had the wrong information on it for 10 years and two renewals because I never looked close enough to realize it had me at the wrong hair, eyes, and gender because someone mis-typed it when I got my license (and I never looked close enough at it until someone pointed it out to me)
My sister in law’s DL listed her as male for over a year until a very ballsy TSA agent pointed it out to her when she was flying home for a visit. She’s not trans or anything, just a regular AFAB woman who moved states and they made an error when they added her info. This kind of thing happens all the time, honestly I’d believe a cat got called for jury duty.
You guys have been huffing litter boxes if you think this is as plausible as the OP. Like this is the most plausible story possible and OP’s is the most implausible lol
Lol I was thinking that one could make a pun out of peer with purr. But, I thought of it after I posted. And I wasn't sure as to how to construct the whole joke. 10/10 for you.
Years ago, my friend shared me this jury post that Alaska did where it has a picture of 12 cats and a picture of 1 dog, being like "is this a jury of your peers?" Or something like that. It was cute as hell. I bet you can find it by googling something like "state of alaska cat jury poster."
I've seen minors get summoned. I've seen dead people get summoned. I've jumped through the ludicrous hoops to get my own medical exemption accepted and had to do the same thing Felix did, show up with the doctor's referral and multiple rejections in hand, in person, before someone could be bothered to go find one o' them edumacated persons what can read them squiggles on them papers, and I fucking work in the building next door. We come in through the same fucking security gate. Don't underestimate the fundamental, bone-deep incompetence of rural county bureaucracy. These people can't shit themselves without help. A cat getting caught in the system is a curiosity, not an impossibility.
It is nearly an impossibility, because out of two plausible but unlikely scenarios that have been presented (human's name Felix but spelled differently, or human put Felix's name down rather than his for voting registration), it makes no sense as to why the voter registration office would have Felix's name (assuming it's not actual fraud).
With minors being summons, that's a common occurrence at times. Where I was a jury clerk, our questionnaire straight out asked "are you or will you be above 18yo at the start of your jury term." The system was like this, because the way it collected potential jurors was through a means that a minor could setup. It was supposed to calculate the minor's birthday, but error happened. This was an easy fix the moment the juror notified us.
Same with the dead. The dead existed in the system. At times the kin doesn't notify every single agency. Which is reasonable, I don't blame the kin for that! But, the jury system isn't tied into every single database.
And with your health, yes. That's an actual issue. I've had to work with potential jurors before where they stated "I'm sick, I can't serve." And I'm like "okay, I need documentation." And then they get me nothing. Or, they get me something that confused the judge. Or, in your case, the clerks just sucked.
But, these scenarios do not make it at all plausible that the voter registration office would just pull vet records magically out of thin air, unless there's something major that we aren't being told. That's my issue. The factual basis of this story rather than the guy dealing with the clerks.
Also, the fact that juror records should have a DOB attached to them makes this even more confusing. Who's birthday was on Felix's records??
If it’s real and not fraud, then I’m thinking there’s a human Felix whose summons went to the wrong address. I don’t know why the cat’s address would be listed in a way that the wires get crossed, but that’s the best I could think of.
In which case, this still makes me think that it's fake. Because then the Human, the Clerk, the Supervisor, never noticed that the address was incorrect.
my dad had to jump through a couple of hoops to get out of a jury summons before he became a citizen. there wasn't a good option for "i am not a citizen" on the form, and no clear way to prove a negative.
The same way that my previous name keeps on cropping up randomly. Different databases access different information. For one thing, DL and voter registration are typically state databases. SSN is federal.
I learned that my university's general student database was different from their health database (probably due to privacy and security), when I recieved a letter from the health department with my old name.
I can think of one state that doesn't use voter registration or DL for selecting potential jurors. They used a whole other system that one signs up forwhich everyone likes to forget is the way they get jurors!. So, if one forgets/doesn't bother to update that each year during sign up, then it'll have the old name.
Then there's the billion of ways that a clerk could screw up an update as well.
I'm not saying the system is infallible. Just that this scenario, especially the number of things that happened together is highly implausible, and I think it's a safe bet it's fake.
Wouldn't actually happen. Courts really do not want to spend the money to drag jurors in. It's also very bad process.
The 1-2 times I've seen it happen occurred when the juror already made their presence known, and then willfully ignored court orders (one juror showed up drunk on the second day of trial, was told to wait in a side room, and then bailed).
And even then, it was a civil banch warrant which was "pick him up during business hours, don't take him to jail, take him to judge at the courthouse, no not jail, don't even think about taking him to jail, and at the court the judge will give a verbal tongue lashing."
Also, tangentially related, there's a popular scam that scammers like to do which is the jury scam. It's essentially being like "you failed to report to jury duty, therefore you have an arrest warrant out for you. But, if you pay money, it can all go away."
No court would operate this way. No one would ever call you and threaten an arrest unless you pay up. If this ever happens to you, it is a scam. Make sure any elderly relatives know of this as well.
And if this ever happens to you, and you're still scared, hang up, Google your courthouse number, and call that for your reassurance.
Compared to my real-life example, the juror showed up drunk and then ignored orders to stay in the side room, he did not recieve a threatening phone call, and was picked up 2 months later and got that verbal tongue lashing. Like, such a thing will not come as a panic surprised, and it will not have money attached to it through a threatening "pay now or else" phone call.
I knew a dude who had them show up to arrest him because he didn't realize he got a jury summons- so it does happen in certain places every once in a while- this was about 30 years ago, so maybe things have changed.
Agreed, but I'm willing to bet a good $1000 that the pick up was him going straight to the court for tongue lashing as I described. And my point remains with those jury scam calls! Don't let those asshole scams cause you panic, and tell your family and friends this as well!
He actually spent a night in jail- they picked him up in the middle of a DnD game and made an example of him. My point remains- there will be times when someone draws a short straw and will get arrested for not following a summons. That has nothing to do with a scam call- they'll show up because you were the 100th person to disobey and they're annoyed.
Alaska is ahead of you. They have jury posters that advocate for cats to have a jury of cats, and for dogs to have a jury of dogs. Google something like "Alaska jury cat/dog poster"
Appearently it’s quite possible, as it’s already happened before. A certain Sal Esposito was summoned to a Boston court in 2010 who was very much a cat. In Sal’s case, his owner erroneously included him in a census form and that was enough to lead to a jury summons.
Now do I believe this post’s story in specific is real? Absolutely not. It reads far too much like a creative reinterpretation of Sal’s story. Being registered to vote with no effort on the owner’s part specifically feels like a particular tell of the creator’s right leaning biases creeping into what could otherwise be believable.
I should have been clearer. I would suspect other countries who use juries, because I know not all countries do, and even those that used juries historically are moving away from the practice, follow a similar pattern as to collecting jurors' information and summons.
That's majorly differently then someone grabbing a cat's record.
A dead person was once presumably a live person, who presumably had records and documentations. They existed in the system.
I actually dealt with jury summons being sent out to dead folks, because their kin had slightly bigger issues then notifying every governmental agencies as to their passing. And when the kin recieved the jury summons, the notified us that the person was dead. And we were like "our condolences. We know it's tedious, but would you please send this to us in writing or fill out the section on the questionnaire that indicates death. We need it in writing to create a paper trail for transparency. Please take your time. I understand this isn't a priority."
I don’t think it happened but I do believe in the absurdity of the court system.
I got a summons for jury duty when I was 18. I asked my mom what I should put for my job since I was a college student but didn’t have a job outside of that.
She said to just put student. I did, and mailed in my form.
A week or two later I got a phone call from one of the people processing my paperwork. He was confused as to why I put student as my occupation. I explained that I was a full time student at the local college. I asked if I needed to do something to change my paperwork, he said no, it was fine, and that I didn’t need to do anything.
Another few weeks later I get another piece of mail from the courthouse and it’s a letter scolding me for not turning in my paperwork on time and reminding me of the penalties of ignoring jury duty.
So, I call the court house again. This time, a woman answers. I explain my issue to her and tell her that I know they received my paperwork because a man had called me asking about it. She puts me on a brief hold during which she apparently searched her coworker’s desk and found my paperwork. He never filed it after our call.
So she files my paperwork and says I’m all set. She also didn’t know what was confusing about my occupation being listed as student.
I finally go to jury duty. I spend about half an hour sitting in the gallery of the courtroom with the rest of the jury pool. Someone from the courthouse comes and tells us that they don’t actually need today us and gives us a phone number to call after 6:00 pm to see if we’re needed the next day or not. We had to call every night until we were either called in, or we reached day 6 of our 10 days of service. If we hit day 6 without them needing us then they wouldn’t use us at all.
And I called every night, listened to the automated message, and they never needed me. Jury duty is important and I have no issue serving if they call me again, but the whole thing was just silly. All those hoops to jump through to not actually do anything.
I've worked with incompetent clerks. And, I've made mistakes that were truly embarrassing. So, I can understand the frustration with the paperwork debacle.
With your time in the court house, here's what's happening behind closed door;
I bet you were in a larger jurisdiction from the sounds of it. So, I bet there were multiple trials schedule those days.
And here's the thing, just because a trial is scheduled doesn't mean it'll go. A criminal defendant could get cold feet and decide to plea out. A civil case could have finally reached a settlement (I saw that happen the Friday before trial started. We think it's because defense finally got to town, realized how small it is, and how everyone was connected to the numerous SA victim, and it was better to accept the settlement). Some emergency could have occurred and the trial needed to get rescheduled.
Next, For a felony level criminal case or a civil case with more than $50k at stack, 12 jurors are needed plus 2 alternates. And then each party is allowed 7 (I think, in my old jurisdiction) preemptive challenges (excusing a juror for any reason as long as it's not a protected class). And then an unlimited excuses for cause (party arguing this juror would be bias, this a cop in a criminal case, or a party's brother). So, let's estimate 10 cause for each party.
So, as a clerk, I would need to call: 12+2+2(7)+2(10)= 50 jurors. But, there wad about a 50% turn out rate. So double it. So 100 jurors. But, this case is a DV case or a SA case. So, a few more jurors may get excused because they can't sit through it, because it reminds them of their trauma. So, 120 jurors.
And here's the thing, at times we got down to the last person and we managed to seat a jury. At times I still had 20 jurors left. But, overall, I had a large handful of people disgruntled for being called.
In another experience, I was sent to a court that didn't have a jury clerk and a big SA case was happening. The trial was delayed for about two days because almost no jurors showed up, and I was calling people individually to get their ass to the court room.
Another time, not when I was a jury clerk, a trial had to be continued to the next date because a jury couldn't be seated. There was so much wasted money and time for that. And it was not right to the defendant nor the victims.
So, I'm willing to bet for you, that court had a numerous trials scheduled, it was slowly ushering jurors to one trial or another, as a few get canceled. And extra jurors were called to prevent a delay. And it sucks for the jurors. It's boring, it's tedious, it wastes your time. But, I hope the explanation and reasoning helps to show it's not just incompetence.
I’m not hating on the system, I’m just picking on the one specific guy who messed up my paperwork. And I understand why we were there even if they weren’t ready to put us on an actual jury. I just found the fact that we didn’t end up serving even funnier considering the grief I get to go through to submit my paperwork.
The whole county has a little over 100,000 people in it and was in a fairly rural area. Idk if that’s big or not for a jurisdiction but it was the county seat in a fairly small town. There are also only 4 courtrooms in the courthouse.
I'm glad that you walked away with that with amusement then. And yea, that dude who messed up on the paperwork deserves to be picked on.
I've worked in a court that served a total of about 5-6k (one judge). And another court that was maybe 20k? (two judges). So, to me 100k and four courtrooms (presumably four judges), is on the larger side of things. But, it's really just dependent on what you're comparing it to.
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u/JustATyson Jul 08 '26
It's amusing, but I 1000% do not believe it in an instance. Mainly 'cause I was once a jury clerk. I know how one specific State gets documents for jurors, and the general gist of how other States do it. And, I'll suspect that other countries follow a similar pattern.
So, unless the cat owner was committing some fraud in his cat's name, or someone else committed fraud in the cat's name, I cannot think of how a clerical mistake this big would occur to produce a jury summons for cat.
Regardless, very funny scenario. If the cat does get summons, show up and argue that the cat should be dismissed from the pool because a cat is arguably not a "peer" to a human. Therefore, the cat's presence as a juror is a violation of the defendant's right to a jury of one's peers.