Officials in Boston are defending their decision to include a cat in the jury pool for an upcoming trial in March.

Sal Esposito, a domestic short-hair from East Boston is scheduled to begin passing judgment on the 23rd of next month despite the best efforts by Sal’s owners, Guy and Anna Esposito to have Sal disqualified on account of not being human.

“First of all, there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids cats from serving jury duty,” announced jury commissioner Pamela J. Wood.  “I am tired of felines shirking their responsibilities just because they are a different species and have a brain 50 times smaller than a humans’!”

When asked how a cat could be expected to be as compassionate and pragmatic as a human, Mrs. Wood replied, “Compassionate?  Anyone who owns a cat knows that they bring in many of their kills as gifts to their owners.  While this may only be a dead mouse with its intestines dangling, that’s still more than the Republicans ever gave anyone and they can sit on juries!”

Mrs. Wood then continued, “As for pragmatism, cats will never urinate on themselves or fall asleep in their own vomit which makes them much smarter than every person downtown at a St. Patrick’s Day Festival and those folks can all sit on juries too!”

Cat behavior expert, Marilyn Krieger responded to the jury commissioner’s decision in an interview via telephone.

“Sure why not?” she said.  “It makes about as much sense to have a cat decide someone’s fate as it does for twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty.  Cat senses are seven to fourteen times better than humans and since most juries convict on how the defendant appears to them anyways, I think I’d rather take my chances with the tabby!”

Point in case,” Mrs. Krieger continued.  “Charles Manson, OJ Simpson and Dick Cheney all hate cats and all three of those guys are guilty as hell so who am I to stand in the way of the next great reform in American justice?”

Jury Commissioner Wood could not be reached for a follow-up comment as she was busy contracting Keyboard Cat to play defendants off upon being found guilty.