It’s not quite a statute of limitations thing, but it’s a too-late thing, and it’s definitely a chutzpah thing. The defendant suddenly is asking that his jury be given an unexpected day off because of his religion?

Well, we all know how I feel about religion. Not positively. Glad the judge didn’t cave in, although you can guess the defendant’s lawyer will use this to file an appeal if he loses the case.

And I’m also wondering why if this guy had such religious devotion he somehow managed to forget about it until mid-trial. Hm.

By the way, it was when working for lawyers that I learned something about appeals. First, every lawyer who gets a bad verdict says, “We will appeal!” You know. You’ve read it all the newspaper accounts of guilty verdicts. Yeah, sure, but…

Appeals aren’t just “We are unhappy with this verdict and intend to complain” sort of things. They actually have to be based on genuine legal issues (what a shocker), and are usually criticisms of the way the judge handled the case.