The Region : Tardy Juror Gets a Cell

A juror who was jailed overnight for arriving late at a robbery trial said he was treated like a criminal because his car had broken down on the freeway. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert W. Armstrong said if Ashley Williams, 23, had informed the court sooner of his car woes, “I probably would have dealt with him less severely than I did.” Williams of Long Beach was 20 minutes late for the trial in Norwalk, and returned from the lunch recess at 4 p.m.--2 1/2 hours late. “It really kind of shocked me,” Williams said of his sentence. “I’m trying to do the service the best I can, and I got held up. It really upset me. My car had an electrical problem. It seemed like they couldn’t understand that.” The robbery trial, with an alternate replacing Williams, ended with the defendant being found guilty.