"Are you sure you're in the right place here?"
that's funny... a jail sentence for a cell phone ringing is an abuse of power. the judge is clearly a jerk.
This doesn't make him a jerk, The judge is responsible for maintaining order in his court room. When he says "shut up" your best bet is to shut up. When he says to turn off that cell phone, your best bet is to do just that.. Contempt of court was invented to help the judge maintain order in his court because there are always brats like the girl in the article, and people who insist the brat is never responsible for his or her actions.
The sentence was for contempt of court. She failed to comply with the judge's order.
Folks have been thrown in jail for CoC before, often for stuff a lot less serious than cell phones going off.
You're right the judge is a cantankerous old jerk, whose arrogance is only exceeded by the size of his head band. A misdemeanor offence gets the max of 45 days? Nice going, her next possession arrest will no doubt be a felony. Happy Holidays from the government. If they aren't taking it out of your pocket, their shoving it up your a$$, IMHO.
What does that mean, MinuteGal? No debate for you because someone has a different opinion.
That's funny... a jail sentence for a cell phone ringing is an abuse of power. the judge is clearly a jerk.
I agree with orangelobster, the judge is a to extreme with contempt charges.
Here is good old DC a teenage car thief whom the police caught gets out of the court room without any jail time.
This teenage girl gets 21 days in jail for her cellphone ringing and she probably received probation for the drug charges.
The judge is a jerk!
why? she could have been thrown in court for talking also or for doing any number of things to disrupt the proceedings. I imagine if someone were to simply stand up in court and refuse to sit down they would be thrown out and if they didn't obey put in jail. The key is there must be discipline in court proceedings.
So, If he instructs her to remain quiet as the lawyers present their arguments, and she interrupts, then he's a jerk?
The rules were established, and broken. She was in contempt of a court instruction. Heck, I turn my cell phone off when I go into meetings - or at least turn the ringer off. In my case, I do it to keep from annoying my boss (who doesn't have the authority to jail me - just fire me). She chose unwisely, and suffered consequences, IMO.
If he doesn't do this he will shortly have a courtroom with 50 defendants and a cell phone ringing every minute or so. She was not the only defendant in there that day.
If she didn't know how to turn it off, she should have set it to vibrate only, which would have been acceptable.
HARDLY an abuse of power.
Our culture has become outrageously abusive of authority; rebellious in general
and deaf to following instructions.
Such that . . . now, just to get someone's attention
one has to use a 4 X 4 where as a switch might have worked in decades past.
Cheers for the judge.