Core77

"If anything characterizes the 21st century, it's our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people," said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, in an article earlier this month about the release of cell phone jammers, which people can use to surreptitiously drop the calls of that loud chatterer nearby.

This seems to have extra relevance to at least one courtroom in upstate New York: on Tuesday, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct voted to remove Judge Robert Restaino from the bench after he flipped out when a ringing cell phone pierced the silence of the courtroom. The judge demanded the owner step forward; when no one did, he spent the next two hours indiscriminately jailing 46 people, including calling back 11 people he had already released on their own recognizance and increasing their bail.

Restaino, citing "certain stresses in his personal life," is seeking appeal. No word on whether it will happen--ironically enough, it's now the judge who's waiting for his phone to ring.

via the new york times and cnet