SocialistMop.com Political Humor for the Liberty-Minded
For every generation, there is a technology gap.
Nowhere was this more evident than at the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Florida, the site of the George Zimmerman murder trial, this past Wednesday.
During the July 3rd witness testimony of Gordon Scott Pleasants, Zimmerman’s criminal justice professor at Seminole State College in 2011, it became clear that technology was not a strong suit for most of the people involved in this highly publicized case.
Normally, technology is not a factor in courtroom trials, as they tend to be rather low-tech affairs. However, with Pleasants situated in Colorado while the Zimmerman trial plays out, the professor was allowed to give his testimony via Skype, the popular Internet phone service. The only problem is that neither the prosecuting attorneys nor the circuit judge presiding over the trial had the slightest grasp of Skype’s fundamentals.
The first evidence of this was the fact that Assistant State Attorney Richard Mantei, on whose computer the Skype client was running, did absolutely nothing to conceal his online profile for the purposes of the day’s proceedings. As a result, the moment that the Skype testimony started beaming into millions of homes across the country, the prosecutor’s Skype account immediately became the target of prank callers.
Live.
On national television.
In the middle of the trial of the year.
The barrage of incoming Skype calls soon overwhelmed the court proceedings. All Professor Pleasants could do was chuckle. George Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, knew that they were in trouble, remarking:
I gotta tell you, there’s now a really good chance that we’re being toyed with. Just so you know.
Yes, like a 100% chance.
No need to worry, because cutting-edge technologist Judge Debra Nelson was on the case with her impressive technical prowess:
Is that his phone that’s getting those messages?
Oh, honey. Bless your heart.
Eventually, Judge Nelson pulled the plug on the disastrous Skype session, and the professor’s testimony resumed over cell phone, ruining the fun for 10-year-old basement-dwellers nationwide.
Check out video of the now-infamous Zimmerman trial “Skype bombing” session here:
