We were really excited when condemned killer Patrick Knight announced his campaign to find a great joke to tell before he gets the needle tonight. And we were equally bummed when he rejected the list we sent in, which was chock-full of knee-slappin’ knock-knocks, puns, and a classic about a one-legged stripper. We were especially surprised that he rejected our death-row-specific jokes, since they adhered to a cardinal comedic principle: know your audience. Among the rejectees (answers at the bottom):
1.) What do you get when you cross an incompetent staff of police crime lab technicians working on capital cases with a corrupt staff of police crime lab technicians working on capital cases?
2.) What do you get when a policeman trips over hundreds of boxes of missing crime-scene evidence from 20 years’ worth of cases, including capital crimes?
3.) What do you get when the district prosecutors’ handbook states: “Do not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or members of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or well-educated”?
4.) What does it mean when 13 prisoners from one jurisdiction were exonerated in a six-year period when DNA testing showed they did not commit the crimes they were sentenced for?
Answers: 1.) Probably innocent dudes on death row; 2.) Probably innocent dudes on death row; 3.) Probably innocent dudes on death row; 4.) Probably innocent dudes on death row.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2007.
