I'm sitting in the jury room at City-County Building in downtown Tacoma as I write this. Hours ago, the room was packed. Now, about a dozen people are still waiting for an assignment (including me). This is, to say the least, a trying experience for anyone who has a boss back at the office wondering how unproductive a certain employee is today.

A fellow juror-in-waiting and I are both using our laptops and trading stories of woe about work piling up while we're here. We're also discussing how the system might be aided with the assistance of technology, since it's difficult for many professionals to get away from the office if your employer isn't so civic-minded.

I'm lucky to have an aircard to connect to the web and keep up on email, but how many others simply get out of jury duty because of the professional inconvenience? (My own anecdotal evidence suggests plenty.) It would be helpful if there were wifi access available for those waiting to be called, making it easy for busy professionals to take their work to the jury room as they wait for the call. It might help balance the actual juries that hear cases since I assume they are usually dominated by those who are out of work, retired or stay-at-home parents.

How to pay for it? Ask people to donate their $10/day pay for serving. That's barely a dollar an hour for me today, and I haven't done anything but watch a video and go through orientation.

On a related note, Spud Goodman released his latest video and it's all about jury duty. The target of Spud's sarcasm this time around is that very concept of "peers" who are sitting on a given jury. Just imagine you or someone you know on trial. "It's really scary," is how someone here put it today.

So what do you think? Would you be more willing to serve jury duty if there were free wifi available?