Doug Ford is too famous to serve on any juries, says Doug Ford

Doug Ford asked for (and was denied) an exemption from jury duty on Monday. Why? Here’s what he told the Sun: “The only person who is not anonymous, besides me, is the judge. They know where I live, they know everything about me,” Ford said. “I’ve already had death threats…to my kids, to me, to my family.”

He added, “Would every other jury member want to hand in their phone number, their address, their family name to the person they are convicting?”

This isn’t the first time the Fords have mentioned death threats. Some people were actually arrested for threatening Rob Ford early in his mayoralty. Over the summer, police said they’d be investigating one email to Doug Ford that chief Bill Blair characterized as “threatening and concerning.” Doug returned to the topic in November, during the immediate aftermath of his brother’s crack confession. “We’ve been getting death threats,” he told CNN. “My daughters, I have four young girls, they were threatened to be sodomized and raped.”

And now the threats are back, as a reason the councillor can’t serve on a jury. Leaving aside the fact that virtually everyone’s personal information is Googlable, whether or not they’re a politician (and also ignoring the fact that the Fords aren’t above issuing some threats of their own), it’s a little odd that Ford would try to use his position in this way. He specifically voted against the idea of exempting city councillors from jury duty back in 2012.