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Internet-Caused Mistrials Are On the Rise
The NYTimes is running a tip-of-the-iceberg story about how the age of Google is resulting in more mistrials as the traditional rules of evidence, honed over many centuries, collide with the always-on Internet. Especially when jurors carry the always-on Internet in their pockets. (We discussed one such case recently.) "The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges. ... Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system's complex rules of evidence."
Its just they have adapt these orders to be extremely explicit about the new kinds of communication. Face it, the average juror may not be that sharp and may not realize it until told.
Every juror is searched every day for any electronic device. No cell phones, no Blackberrys, no nothing. If the rules of court allow it, they get pencil and paper. Otherwise, they sit and listen.
This does not preclude someone from going home and looking up information, but it does solve the issue of doing things in court you shouldn't be doing while on a jury.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The internet just makes it easier and faster for morons to display their stupid. In the old days, that same jackass who just had to twitter about the trial he's on would have been knocking back beer in a local bar and going on about the trial.
I carried my mobile phone all the time, and used it in the common area to talk to my girlfriend, check my email etc.
/. and The Register, NotAlwaysRight.com and other chod websites, and chatted with some other jurours.
I had access to the internet through a wireless hotspot, and I read
I was told that the case had to be decided upon by the edivence heard in court, and that I wasn't to discuss the case outside of the court room or deliberation room. So I didn't. It was that simple.
It's not a question of the rules needing to be changed, it's the need for people to follow them. If they don't, they tarnish the legal process and the people will lose faith. Trial by Jury will become Trial by Media, and we all know that they are TOTALLY unbias.
As usual, this is an education problem, not a rule problem. As IT folk, you should know that the answer is almsot always "educate the user" not "restrict the user".
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I can get out of jury duty?
They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
If I was in a jury, I'd be very interested in the relevant case law.
The problem is that as a member of the jury it isn't your job to look at the case law. You are supposed to be a finder of fact, i.e: did the defendant commit this act. It's up to the judge to review the case law and if he does a piss-poor job of it then the defendant has grounds for appeal.
you can't block people off from information any longer.
Actually if they wanted to they could.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Because people are not experts on a subject matter.
It's like self diagnosis. If you look up your symptoms you could find that you have a mild cold, You could also discover that you 'have' any number of exotic deadly diseases. It takes a trained doctor to be able to ask the right quests and examine you and narrow it down to the most likely disease.
Lawyers and judges are skilled at knowing what is and isn't relevant to a case, at knowing how to get vital information from an expert. If you've looked up information that has been left out of a case, there may be a reason it's been left out. The defence might have chosen to leave out a piece of evidence you think would prove innocence deliberately because it carries unforeseen implications.
If you look at someone accused of murder and look up that he has previous convictions for violent assault, that would make it seem more likely he was a murderer. However a judge may view that the assault charges were simple drunken brawls but the murder was planned, cold and calculated. The drunken brawls aren't related enough to the present case to justify the impact they'd have on the jury.
I imagine one thing that makes the judge qualified to judge what evidence is permissible is a better understanding of the issues (and case law and history) related to things like the 4th amendment.
It may be a "fact" that drugs were found in the defendant's car. This "fact" may be deemed inadmissible if 4th amendment rights were violated. It is possible that despite this the defendant was indeed guilty. But it is also possible corrupt cops planted the "evidence".
I imagine there are a slew of things like this. So although I would chafe under restrictions preventing me from doing basic research to better understand things related to a particular case, there's no need to disrespect a judge's role here.
A jury of your peers is a jury of people like you and not, say, a group appointed by the government, or only rich people, or just the judge.
That is part of his job. There are facts that would sway the jury via emotion that should not be considered in the case at hand.
The judge has control over the information available to the jury because the jury is only supposed to consider the information that is relevant to the case. Outside information may prejudice the jury against one party or the other. Consider a case where one party has convictions for a different kind of crime many years ago, say marijuana possession. The person is arrested for petty theft. Should convictions for possession be admissible in the current case? That is what the judge decides.
How about a case where a woman is charged with a crime and in the past lost her children to Child Protective Services. Should the fact that her children are in foster care be considered in her current case?
How about a case against someone many believe killed two people and was acquitted? Should that case be introduced? It could cause members of the jury to vote guilty, not for the allegation in the case, but rather for the case he has already been acquitted of.
Who is going to monitor, for how long, and how? And, what exactly is personal gain? What if someone does it to send the defendant to jail because he does not like the defendant? Or, the defendant's wife? Or, tries to get the defendant off for similar reasons? What if one wants to just tarnish the record of one of the attorneys?
One thing to keep in mind is that most people are terrible at determining what is relevant to making a decision and, as a result, make bad decisions.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The jury isn't the trier of law, that's the judge's job. The jury is the trier of fact. Any application of case law independently by a juror, wherever they derived the knowledge and however correct it is, would be misconduct. The jury is to determine the facts, not to apply their own understanding of the law. This is important, because the judge articulates and applies the law, and that articulation is subject to review on appeal. A silent, unexplained application of law by a juror (and, a fortiori, multiple of them by different jurors) cannot be effectively reviewed on appeal because no one knows what it is. The deference given to the juries decision on points of fact (it being overruled on appeal only if the evidence could not reasonably support the conclusion found) is entirely dependent on the premise that the jury is just following the instructions they are given and determining the facts in accordance with those.
That's not to say the rules couldn't be changed, but these aren't just peripheral rules -- to change the rules on what jurors can do upends a lot of the fundamental principles of the jury system. (And that's only dealing with the aspect of the trier of fact vs. trier of law role; then there is the whole question of how they perform the role of trier of fact, and the issue of excluded evidence, which often directly involves the Constitutional rights of the people in court, and Constitutional limits on powers of government.
To an extent, the rise in mistrials is a result of it being easier to detect the kinds of violations that people engage in. It's a lot easier for a party to a case to find out and bring to a judge's attention juror misconduct that consists of or is announced in internet postings than when its just talked about around a watercooler.
Having served on several juries, a number of misconceptions need to be cleared up: You can ask questions. The judge may not like it, but if you submit it properly, do not discuss it with fellow jurors, it might be allowed. The right question can completely screw things up for the prosecution or defense, so you will not be thanked. Juries violate all sorts of instructions all the time, and outside info is part of the game. Getting outside information puts pressure on the legal system to do things right, and they don't like that. I do not recommend causing a mistrial, but at the same time, a juror cannot be expected to remove their brain will serving. During one trial that I was a juror for, the prosecution put on a police officer who stated something that was patently not true. The freeware public defender did not challenge it. I was faced with a dilemma -- quickly verify my correct knowledge (just in case I remembered wrong) or go with the police testimony, and convict an innocent man.
Nothing outside the courtroom should influence your decision in court.
Except that I come into the courtroom with 41 years of real-world experience & education which may or may not be approved by the judge, which may include direct knowledge of relevant laws, and which does include the knowledge that some judges will stifle relevant facts which may throw the case. As a juror, I am not merely a pawn in the game, I am (and intend to remain as relevant) an informed intelligent citizen who holds a 1/12th stake in soveriegnty over the case at hand. Not only are the facts presented up for evaluation by the jury, but the law itself and even the judge are subject to the jury (save only for plainly egregious verdicts). The defendant's freedom, and perhaps life, is at stake - as juror, I owe him more than meek submittal to a judge's biased orders and lawyer's incompetence or ulterior motives. To the officers of the court (attorneys included), the defendant is expendible; the jury should not concur.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
That jury nullification exists as a de facto power is a very different thing than whether or not it is proper. It certainly is the case that the jury can decide the fact questions presented to it on any basis it chooses, including improper ones. Its a bit more debatable whether jury nullification is proper, but in any case jury nullification is not a finding on what the law is, it is a finding that the law should not be applied at all and that the defendant should be let off notwithstanding the law.
Inasmuch as jury nullification is a desirable power of juries (whether or not technically a proper one), I would say that independent, out-of-court investigation, whose contents are not revealed completely to the parties, by jurors in support of it is equally problematic as such investigation in the jury's role as trier of fact, for the same reason: it brings arguments into the jury deliberations that have not been presented to the parties to the case and which the parties whose interests are harmed have no opportunity to rebut.
Here is the big problem -- if a juror does independent research to uncover facts about the case, and uses those facts to come to a decision regarding guilt or innocence, the attorneys for the defense and the prosecution have a right and a duty to hear of those facts and either support or debunk them in the courtroom. Furthermore, some forms of evidence, such as hearsay, are not legally admissible. It is the responsibility of the judge to ensure that hearsay is not admitted into the trial and allowing jurors to do their own research prevents the judge from performing his responsibility and thereby ensuring a fair and legal trial.