I just caught the tail-end of a radio news item the other day where they were discussing a case where the judge didn't know what a web-site was. Strange when you consider that today's lawyer's will probably heavily rely on looking up points of law on the interweb, rather than wading through libraries of dusty tomes.

Which reminds me of an old anecdote of an out-of-touch, crumbly, upper-crust British judge some years ago, trying a case up North: The lawyer asked the witness at what time he had seen the incident. "Around dinner time" he answered. The judge interjected, "Would that be between 7 and 8, or 8 and 9?"

Now up north, dinner is the mid-day meal, and tea is the evening meal.
Down south it's lunch and dinner respectively ("Tea" is an afternoon snack with tea and sandwiches, or "tiffin")

In any case, most northerners would have their dinner/tea around 6-ish, or as soon as they get home from work. This stuffy old judge was used to the rigidity of formal dinners.

Some of these "posh" people even call dinner "supper". To a northener, supper is toast and cocoa before going to bed.

>I didn't see in the story how old the prosecutor is. But I expect mor things like this as people without any knowledge of technology whatsoever are put into positions involving such.
>
>Like the 70 yr old congressman from Alaska responsible for bills in congress involving the internet. You know, the series of pipe things.
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>I don't think this is so much laws out of control, as people with no knowledge whatsoever not having the curtesy to step aside when they're not qualified.
>
>>>I kind of figured more of this would happen as more court cases involving computer technology come forward:
>>>
>>>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070214-8850.html
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>>As of yesterday, she's been granted a new trial that will allow her expert witness to testify (since his testimony will be available to prosecution before trial), although some are saying that it will not go to court and all charges will be dropped against her. Apparently the independent lab that was hired to examine the hard drive from the machine found a spybot that had been loaded back around Halloween when the teacher she was subbing for downloaded a Halloween screen saver.
>>
>>There are also calls from the people involved (on the defense side) for the resignation of the prosecuting attorney.
>>
>>From the Washington Post blog:
>>http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/06/substitute_teacher_granted_new.html?nav=rss_blog