I recently spent three hours at municipal court. (I had to plead guilty to a moving violation.) Apparently the way these courts work is that they summon thirty or so people to arrive at 5 pm, and then we all sit around while cases are called. Some people were probably there for five hours.
The evening started like this: a few of us arrived early and sat down in the court room. Then a policeman came in and asked us all to go back into the hall and go through a metal detector. (I could probably have left anything in the courtroom under a chair while I did that.)
I wear my phone and PDA in a pouch on my belt. I removed that pouch and my keys, etc., before going through the detector. There was only one decent place to set my stuff down: on a table just beyond the detector, so I reached around and put my pouch and stuff there.
I walked though the detector without even a chirp, picked up my gear from the table and went back to the court room. I could have secreted anything in my pouch, even something solid weighing two pounds. The policeman did not even glance at it.
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2 comments:
Never been to a court house that poorly secured. I even grew up in a very rural county (less than 50,000 total population) and the county seat (around 2500) you could not enter the courthouse without going through a metal detector. Cell phones were not even allowed inside.
Of course, you do live in Jersey, so maybe that's it.
JF,
Maybe you're right. Things may improve when we outsource the court system.
-PB
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