Lawyer Demands Jury Stops Googling

coomaria noted an unsurprising story about how courts are having problems with jurors Googling during cases. As anyone who has ever been called for jury duty knows, you aren't allowed to get outside information about the case you are hearing, but apparently the iPhone makes it far too easy to ignore this advice. A lawyer is trying to get jurors to sign a form explicitly stating they won't "use 'personal electronic and media devices' to research or communicate about the case." Of course, I'm not exactly sure why a juror should need to sign something for your iPhone but not a newspaper.

Comments

Just confused?

[hansamurai]

Maybe they're just trying to figure out what all the complicated legalese being thrown out by both sides is supposed to mean by checking out Wikipedia or Findlaw?

Re:Just confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if you'd ever been on a jury you would know that trial attorneys typically dumb down arguments and presentations to a level that would shock most slashdotters (e.g., "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.") IAAL and it's sad to reduce complex (and interesting) technical issues into baby talk so 8 unemployed people from the mall can pick a winner in a million dollar business dispute.

Re:Just confused?

[Dhalka226]

Actually, Juries CAN decide the matters of law, it is just frowned upon. It is called Jury Nullification, where a jury, despite of the facts, simply ignores the law.

Ehh, sorta. From what research I've done, "jury nullification" is more a byproduct of the fact that "no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States" (7th Amendment) and the protection against being tried again for the same crime once you're found innocent (5th Amendment).

In other words, once a jury finds a person innocent it doesn't matter at all why they did it. Hell, they could all have been bribed and their decision would still stand (though they and the people who paid them may all be subject to prosecution themselves). In that sense, yes, "I don't approve of the law" is going to hold up.

The most recent court decisions on the matter basically go like this: Yes, you can do it, because we can't stop you. But yes, if anybody tells you that you can do it the judge can declare a mistrial. And yes, if the judge believes you're going to do it he can throw you off the jury pre-emptively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#United_States). Presumably, if you brought it up in the jury room and the judge found out he could also declare a mistrial at that point, though I've not seen any specific evidence for or against that assumption.

So, yeah, it exists, but I wouldn't agree with those who call it a right. It's a byproduct of our system that the courts really don't want you to have or to exercise, they just can't really stop you.

What about the "CSI Effect"?

[HockeyPuck]

IANAL, but my cousin is and her husband is a police officer, and one of her biggest complaints is that jurors are now expecting evidence to be collected and more importantly processed along the lines of the tv show CSI. Where DNA results are turned around in an hour and even bullets collected in the pouring rain can still be matched to a national gunpowder manufacturer database.

Re:What about the "CSI Effect"?

[DarrenBaker]

I'll take twelve less-intelligent peers than one intellectual elected official any day.

Re:Heaven forbid...

[TheRaven64]

On a lighter note: don't forget that with only a few exceptions, the ones who end up in a jury are the people too stupid to get out of it. :)

I don't know why this is on a lighter note; this is a real problem. People on juries are people with a strong sense of social responsibility and people too stupid to get out of it. You can probably guess the ratio of the former to the latter. Given how important a functioning judiciary is to society, jury service really ought to be better rewarded, so competent people don't have such a strong incentive to get out of it.

Re:Why this is a good thing

[uffe_nordholm]

There is an easy way around this: let the jurors ask questions to any witness they like, and demand clarification of any facts they need explained in more detail. And let them do this at any time before delivering their verdict, be it while the witness is still in the stand or much later.

Since both the DA and defence council are obviously biased one way or the other, letting the jury do some fact-finding of their own seems reasonable to me. (Caveat: I live in a country that does not use a jury system, so my proposal might entail problems I cannot forsee. Instead of a jury, Sweden has a system in which volunteers are elected to serve in four year periods. All courts are presided over by a judge, who obviously has legal training, but the other people needn't have it).

Re:Heaven forbid...

[CannonballHead]

jury service really ought to be better rewarded

That way, we can have people wanting to do jury service to get rich, hang all those "social responsibility" and "right and wrong" and "justice" notions.

Not sure "money" (or reward, whatever) is the answer to getting a "smart" and "just" jury...

Unfortunately, it does seem that the jury system was set up in a different era and maybe the general outlook, priorities, and "morals" or ethics were different.

Now, it seems that most people simply don't care ... about really anything. People get far more upset about dying in an online RPG than reading about a real person getting murdered.

Re:Why this is a good thing

[clintp]

1. You've just opened the door to a police state. No thanks. Besides, the crime isn't "excused" but evidence that might be used to convict is ruled inadmissible. Use different evidence, that's all.

2. The rub is this: "officers who..." For an illegal wiretap, who's culpable? The technician who installed it? The officer who listened? The commanding officer who ordered the tap? The judge who signed the warrant that was later invalidated? Who gets charged?

      And then what jury would convict them? If an officer is charged with illegally obtaining evidence that catches a serial child rapist murderer, can you honestly see a panel of jurors sending him to prison? Really? They'd set him free or slap him on the wrist.

This is why there are rules of evidence and defendants have the rights they do, to prevent decay into a lawless police state.