When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Norm Crosby, a stand-up comedian known for malapropisms and observational one-liners, used this joke in the context of his broader repertoire about everyday institutions—law, courts, and bureaucracy—where ordinary people suddenly face high-stakes consequences. The line plays on the familiar American experience of being summoned for jury duty and the common impulse to avoid it. In performance, it functions as a cynical, comic reframing of the jury system: a defendant’s “fate” is decided not by experts but by a randomly selected group, implicitly skewed by who manages to evade service. The humor depends on audience recognition of jury duty as inconvenient and widely resented.

Crosby’s line is a classic comedian’s jab at the jury system: the solemnity of “putting your fate” in others’ hands is undercut by the insinuation that jurors are there not because they are especially wise, but because they failed to avoid an unwanted civic obligation. The humor depends on exaggeration and cynicism—suggesting that the people empowered to decide guilt, liability, or damages may be ordinary, reluctant, or inattentive. Beneath the joke is a broader anxiety about legal outcomes hinging on persuasion, chance, and human fallibility rather than pure truth. It also plays on a familiar cultural stereotype about jury duty as something to evade.