Juror Tweets Could Create Mistrial

nandemoari writes "Russell Wright and his construction company, Stoam Holdings, recently lost a $12 million dollar lawsuit brought by investors. But lawyers for the firm have complained that juror Johnathan Powell's Twitter comments broke rules when discussing the civil case with the public. The arguments in this dispute center on two points. Powell insists (and the evidence appears to back him up) that he did not make any pertinent updates until after the verdict was given; if that's the case, the objection would presumably be thrown out. If Powell did post updates during the trial, the judge must decide whether he was actively discussing the case. Powell says he only posted messages and did not read any replies. Intriguingly, the lawyers for Stoam Holding are not arguing so much that other people directly influenced Powell's judgment, rather that he might have felt a need to agree to a spectacular verdict to impress the people reading his posts."

Comments

Re:It's the Juror's Fault

[Narpak]

I guess it is high time proper behaviour in the digital landscape become a serious, and mandatory, course at all elementary and high schools. And perhaps send someone around to politicians, judges, teachers, and generally everyone above the age of twenty who do not know not to post stupid shit online.

"So, Johnathan, what did you do today?' Oh, nothing really. I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else's money!" and "Oh, and nobody buy Stoam. It's bad mojo, and they'll probably cease to exist, now that their wallet is $12M lighter. http://www.stoam.com/ [stoam.com]."

Those comments pretty much makes it look like this guy should never have been a juror in the first place.