Find them all guilty of disturbing the peace

I survived jury duty without having to bear responsibility for tossing someone in jail or costing someone money in a criminal fine or civil judgment. The only cost, really, was a few hours of boredom and 3 hours of work time lost.

On the positive side, I got caught up on reading some trade magazines, namely Quill from the Society of Professional Journalists and checking out the Best of Photojournalism in 2007 from the National Press Photographers Association.

Another positive is that I will now not have to report for jury duty again for two years. That's the big positive in my book. I ended up getting on a jury the first time I was called the year I graduated from college, which wasn't a great experience. I didn't care too much for the peer pressure that was exerted in the jury room during deliberations. Maybe that was just the character of the jury I was on. Maybe they all aren't like that. It was a 6-person jury on a DUII case.

I have received several summons for jury duty in the year since. One I got just as I was moving from one town to another, so I got out of that one. In 10 years in California, I was called on several times, but I think I only had to report to a courthouse once. The other times I ended up hanging in suspense for a few days, calling in daily before finally being cut loose from having to report.

I did sort of want to make it up to one of the courtrooms on this particular tour of duty though. My fellow prospective jurors and I were warned several times about turning cell phones off completely before going into a courtroom. Apparently judges don't have a sense of humor about ringing cell phones in a courtroom. We were told that even turning the phone onto vibrate was not good enough because the audio system in the courtroom can apparently pick up the sounds of a vibrating cell phone. I wanted to see, and hear that system in action, because I knew some idiot (I mean one of my fellow perspective jurors) would forget to turn off their phone. The jury assembly room was essentially one big cell phone booth, with people all around the room talking on phones, transacting a variety of business.

The most annoying culprit was one of those annoying Nextel phones that chirp repeatedly when an incoming call is coming in. Whomever came up with that bright idea for a walkie-talkie type cell phone should be taken out and shot. Can't we get rid of those damn things now? With so many cell phone plans offering unlimited minutes, or large packages of minutes, there really is no need for phones that only use brief bits of airtime and a time. But there is even less need for hearing the chirps and beeps and loud chatter coming through a so-called cell phone.

I'd have paid money to see a judge confiscate one of those puppies!