Charlie Sheen: are celebrity jurors ever a good thing?

Imagine turning up to court and seeing Charlie Sheen gurning back at you from the jury box. Imagine the chill you'd feel as you discovered that, rather than taking notes throughout your trial, he'd just been manically scribbling the words "tiger blood" again and again in a succession of increasingly deranged fonts. Imagine explaining to him for the thousandth time that "winning" isn't a legally recognised verdict.

It'd be a nightmare. Perhaps that's why, after reporting for jury service in Los Angeles yesterday – and after tweeting a picture of himself with a juror badge – Sheen was excused before he even made it to the courtroom.

Professor Cheryl Thomas at the Jury project at UCL thinks his exemption was probably down to a simple peremptory challenge – the prosecution or defence always have the right to reject a potential juror without providing a reason – rather than for any of Sheen's misdeeds. In England and Wales, however, Sheen wouldn't have even made it that far because he has been convicted in the past 10 years.

Although it's relatively common to hear about American celebrities turning up for jury service – Steve Martin tweeted "REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: defendant looks like a murderer. GUILTY. Waiting for opening remarks" while awaiting selection and celebrity news site TMZ even has a garish "Celebrity Jurors: Reporting for Duty" tag – that's not the case over here, because it's illegal for any juror to be named in connection with a case.

In fact, it is much harder for celebrities to be excused from jury duty in England and Wales because, providing you have no criminal convictions and fit the residency conditions, it's a legal requirement. Even so, last year Lee Ryan from Blue managed to be dismissed after the judge realised that he'd previously sold her a horse. "Don't I know you?" she asked as he was about to take his seat, to which Ryan replied: "If you like music you might," – possibly the Lee Ryan-est sentence ever spoken – before he remembered the equine transaction and went home.

Perhaps the person who excused Sheen had the right idea. Look what happened when Tom Hanks appeared for jury service earlier this month. His case was declared a mistrial after a starstruck young member of the LA City Attorney's Office cornered Hanks in a stairwell, leading to allegations of jury tampering. Then again, who knows, perhaps the world would have discovered that Sheen possessed the most brilliant investigative mind of his generation. Tragically, we'll never know.

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