Zeimet, a 53-year-old truck driver from Huson, also thinks marijuana ought to be legalized, and — like many other members of the Dec. 16 jury pool — objected to the expense of trying Teuray Cornell on a drug possession charge.

“It upset a lot of people,” he said. “You’re wasting the people’s time and the city’s time and money to do something silly and stupid like this.”

Lost in the national hullabaloo about the Missoula jury pool was the fact that Cornell also was being tried on a felony charge of drug distribution.

However, potential jurors never got around to that aspect of the case, getting hung up almost immediately on the possession issue.

“I think if it had gone to trial, I would have been able to convict the young man” on the felony charge, said Brad Hege, 49, of Missoula, another member of the jury pool.

But when it came to the possession charge, Hege — he, too, thinks marijuana should be legalized — said “the jury almost went crazy. It was like, ‘Holy cow, are you kidding me?’ when they said just two buds.”

So many objected to the possession charge that Deschamps called a recess.