News You Can't Use: Oregon Juror Jailed For Texting During Trial

Typing your wet-brain thoughts in broken English on a tiny keyboard is the best thing ever. It's so good, it must take precedence over all other activities, whether that activity is something as trivial as showing common decency to others or as allegedly pressing as self-preservation while controlling several thousand pounds of automobile. Yes, the intellectual golden age is beginning and it's all thanks to this wonderful technology. Sadly, not everyone feels this way. Leave it to a kill-joy like a judge to ruin everything and throw your El Oh Eling ass into the bucket.

A judge in Oregon noticed an unexpected glow on a juror's chest while the courtroom lights were dimmed during video evidence in an armed-robbery trial.

Either one of the jurors is E.T. the extraterrestrial or an important missive like "Im in kort rom lol" is being sent out over invisible wires.

The real greatest generation.

Marion County Circuit Judge Dennis Graves cleared the courtroom and excused all jurors except 26-year-old Benjamin Kohler. According to a news release from the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Kohler had no explanation for his actions.

"A red haze descended and when I regained conscious volition my thumbs were poking at this tiny little keyboard. I can't explain it."

Jurors in Oregon are given explicit instructions at the outset of each trial not to use cellphones in court.

By explicit I'm assuming you mean it was carefully explained and not "no f**king phones you worthless piece of f**king sh*t." Years of putting that word on compact discs for Dirty South rappers has completely destroyed its meaning.

I would totally hang out at the Snub Pub if it was a real thing.

Graves held Kohler in contempt, and Kohler spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in the county jail. He was released Wednesday night.

I'll be honest and admit I'm in the "punish them severely!" camp on this one and I think he got off pretty light. Broken thumbs, anyone?

Neither the nature of the text message nor its recipient was disclosed.

I think it's safe to assume it was thoughtful, impeccably spelled and almost unbelievably important. 

An alternate juror took his place. Sheriff's spokesman Don Thomson said the trial ended Thursday with the defendant found guilty.

We're not saying these two events are in anyway related...or maybe we are? No, they're not.

Entering texting zone, please accelerate and be as reckless as possible.

Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.