A man completing a new online juror questionnaire for the DeKalb County Court in Georgia found a surprising and unpleasant suggestion when he was typing in his occupation: slave.
According to local NBC affiliate 11Alive News, the court doesn’t have an explanation yet for why the word is even on the questionnaire. The man filling out the form reportedly clicked the letter “s” intending to find the word “sales,” and instead ended up with “slave” as a suggestion.
Court Administrator Cathy McCumber told the station the online form just went live a month ago, and the list of occupations originated from the county’s previously offline catalogue, which had been used for 13 years prior. That list is 62 pages long, and McCumber couldn’t say if the word “slave” was always listed as an occupation or if it somehow showed up after the new questionnaire went online.
The company in charge of developing the court’s software said the user is responsible for filling in the drop-down menus with whatever options they choose, which suggests the word was somehow added by a county employee
McCumber said it will take time for an investigation to figure out how or when the word entered the form’s database, but she added that it was removed within an hour of its discovery.
Speculations online have ranged from disbelief and anger to the possibility that an employee entered the word as a joke. DeKalb residents, meanwhile, reacted with shock when they were shown the questionnaire.
"So they're saying it's a mistake? I don't think so,” said Bridgette Mathis to 11Alive. “Why is that even an option? Wow."
"Hopefully it's just a glitch and hopefully it will be worked out,” Anna Wyatt said. “It doesn't make sense, but at the same time people make mistakes.”