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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.
"Not aloud"? "To easy"?
Is there an editor in the house?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
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?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
You're not supposed to read the newspaper either.
It's a Microsoft case, right?
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
...then hearing the lawyers would be deafened, rendering justice blind.
I'm surprised twitter hasn't come up as an issue before this...
"just ruld guilty 4 life LOL pmita prison!"
If they don't stop this behavior, Police who testify will have to use something more convincing than a quote from Wikipedia to put someone behind bars.
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.
If jurors search online for information about the case or the defendant, then it makes it harder to maintain the presumption of innocence.
For example, the media might report all sort of information about the case: the defendant had previously been seen hanging around the schoolyard, the defendant was "known to police", he was convicted of a similar crime 20 years before, etc.
Some of this information might be true, and some of it might not be true. If it's raised during the court case, then it can be rebutted by the other side. If it's just speculation printed in the media and found out by the jurors from their hotel room, the defence might not know what they have to rebut.
Of course .. this is going to get harder and harder as computers and the
internet become more and more pervasive.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
The law hates jurors in the first place - all those non-professionals who evaluate things in terms of right and wrong and not on the pure bases of compliance with appropriate legal loopholes.
It seems like the modern court system starts with the assumption that jurors only mess things up. Then it has rules of evidence so that the jury is given precisely the right information so that they reach the "appropriate" conclusion.
I understand the issues with expert testimony and all that. IMHO some kinds of expert decisions probably shouldn't be made by a jury at all (whether a given product did or didn't cause an injury, for example). However, the solution isn't to leave it up to a jury but to filter information to such an extent that they're forced to come up with the "right" decision. If you want to take the decision away from the jury, just do it!
Last time I was sitting on a jury they took all our phones and PDA's. No electronic devices allowed.
What nutty judges are allowing the jurors to even have their phones on them? so they can be googling while sitting there? Although unless you are sequestered, you can go home and google everything you heard that day...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Perhaps because a newspaper often is more shock and awe stuff and really doesn't cover laws and loopholes as a Google searches might.
Yeah, the media is always accurate. We should revamp the entire judicial system to be run by the media. The correct ruling is always the most sensationalist. No need to make sure both sides of the case have equal voice.
If you're ever on the defending end of a case, would you REALLY trust people to "inform themselves" about your case? From the internet, of all places? It's bad enough people watch CSI and end up in a jury box honestly thinking that's how forensic evidence really works.
We can't even trust people to "inform themselves" about national issues like health care reform - something that would actually effect their own lives, let alone make or break yours.
Confiscate the damn phones at the door.
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. :)
=Smidge=
The prosecution and defense have, for years, been trying to weed out intelligent, informed jurors especially ones that know the defendant or the victim. They claim it is necessary to keep out prejudice even while they do extremely unethical things like introducing the testimony of career criminals who have been given incentives to testilie (aka jailhouse snitches) and to keep information about the victim/plaintiff's behavior from the jury's ears lest the jury come to the conclusion that their behavior was so irresponsible that it mitigates the severity of what the defendant did.
Yes, I want the people deciding my fate to make their decision based on what they heard about the case on Fox News rather than information that meets reasonable criteria to be considered evidence.
"Googling"...?
"the iPhone makes it far to easy to ignore this advice"...?
Did the iPhone suddenly invent mobile internet access? Web access has been a standard feature of every cell phone and PDA sold in the world (certainly in Europe and Asia) since years before the iPhone even existed. And is Google now somehow the only way to contact other people or read news websites?
Can these articles at least be tagged with "productplacement" or possibly "fanboysummary"?
And anyway, sequestered jurors aren't allowed to keep cellphones, while non-sequestered jurors can even watch TV, so the whole point is nonsensical.
If there were such a thing as absolute impartial truth available, you wouldn't need a jury in the first place, just a computer to say "yes" or "no".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Concepts like impartiality are nice, but the only people we trust to be impartial in practice are judges who are carefully appointed after much review - and we all know how technically literate they are.
If you had a third party do this, who would moderate the biases of this group? And who will moderate them? And how do you keep them from influence from outsiders with vested interests? And how do you prevent incremental factual distortions introduced by successive paraphrasing (eg. 'telephone' whispers)? And how will they even decide what is relevant to the case without introducing selection bias?
If jurors were smart enough to do it themselves, great! They can decide what evidence and facts are important to the case they are hearing. If you have non-judiciary third parties involved you're just opening a huge can of worms.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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"This verdict is written on a cocktail napkin. And it still says 'guilty'... And 'guilty' is spelled wrong!"
"I'm not wearing a tie at all."
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What about TV? Especially in OJish cases where every TV on the planet is blaring about it!
When you're a juror you're not supposed to really watch TV. A friend is about to give a victim's statement on a murder case and she isn't allowed to discuss the facts of the case, watch TV, call anybody about it, read the newspaper, or do just about anything that could skew her opinion on the case. Sure, you can watch Happy Days reruns on TV Land if your shitty motel 6 room that the district attourney set you up in has it, but when you're flown out of state to give testimony on a case and you have nothing to do but sit in a hotel room it's pretty boring. I told her to bring books. Lots of books.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
"...the iPhone makes it far too easy..."
Need a mistrial? There's an app for that.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
No, apparently only The iPhone is capable of mobile Internet magic with the Google mothership. Before The iPhone there was no way to ruin a fair trial with outside information, because it was too difficult to reach any sort of outside information at all, of any type on any medium. Also, the magical aura of The iPhone is so blinding that the jurors are too distracted to hear explicit legal instructions from the judge.
Or perhaps they're smarter than we think. Next time I want to get out of jury duty I'll just stare at my phone until I'm dismissed.
I was picked to be a juror on a civil "slip and fall" case. I wanted to serve. The defense attorneys used their peremptory challenges to remove all educated people on the jury, including myself.
Also, back to the story topic, jurors were not allowed any type of electronic device in the entire courthouse either.
Yes, because if you were on trial accused of dealing drugs, you would want the jury to know you were arrested for smoking pot even though the judge in the trial said it was not relevant to the case. And, then when they found you guilty, even though you were innocent because they had developed a biased opinion of you from their internet research, I am sure you will have no problem with it.
Just like if you were arrested at 17 for statutory rape of your 18yo girlfriend (yes, this is possible), you would want the jury to know that you were arrested for rape when a woman IDs you as her rapist, even though there is no physical evidence and little circumstantial evidence and the judge has ruled that your previous arrest (and possible conviction) is not germane to the case.
OH, and I am sure you would want jurors reading blogs that say "He did it! We know he did it! The police just screwed up the case!" while deciding your fate.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I would totally stop avoiding going to jury duty if they would pay me my hourly wage (I am a part time employee, I do not get paid if I do not work, and if I do not get paid I do not have money for my apartment, car, utilities, etc). As I understand it, Federal Jury Duty pays $40 a day, but I work 8am-6pm every day at an hourly rate of $16.50. That means I am out almost $120 for that one day of jury duty. That is two weeks worth of food stuffs, or a payment on my AMEX bill. It is money I simply cannot do without.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
No kidding. My wife was selected for the Missouri jury pool last month. Her compensation (per day) was a little over $20. This is well below minimum wage, and for those people who live paycheck-to-paycheck missing even one or two days of work is a hugely unfair burden.
I understand my civic responsibilities, the social contract, etc., but I think this makes a strong case for civil disobedience until jurors get fairly compensated for their time.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
You are right. I could afford to take the time off for jury duty is I were chosen, but I certainly don't want to. I hate to place an undue burden on employers, but I honestly believe that jury duty needs to be treated much like family leave, and people need to be able to actually collect enough money to live while they are doing the job.
Except you can't really fix things. Languages evolve and change no matter what.
Rome tried to fix the language, and basically the result was that it split into two increasingly diverging languages. Increasingly the language of the common folk, the so called "Vulgar Latin" had less and less to do with what you'd nowadays think of Classical Latin. Unless you were of senatorial class (by empire times it had become a hereditary class) or had some other reason to learn the official form, you probably didn't and it would sound as funny to you as your quote above to a modern English speaker.
The Greeks tried the same with, well, Greek and it too split.
English itself is an example of precisely the results of the idiocy of trying to stop language evolution. At one point English was actually phonetic. E.g., "knight" was really read as it's written, i.e., with a short "i" like in "time" and with the "k" and "g" and "h" actually pronounced. I.e., akin to the German "knecht". But language kept changing. From that word it turned into the modern one which sounds like "night". But due to stupidly trying to stick to the old form, the written form didn't change too, and English writing by and large stopped being phonetic. You're back to, basically, words being hieroglyphs that offer you no indication of how it's pronounced. It's using a phonetic alphabet, but phonetic it ain't any more.
And what was the gain? As I was saying, language still evolved anyway. Words changed, meanings changed, constructs changed, etc. That didn't stop at all. Just the orthography increasingly became an arbitrary bunch of letters that are associated with that word for nothing more than historical reasons.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Newspapers are supposed to be written by professional journalists with professional standards. The articles those journalists write are then supposed to be edited by editors with years, if not decades, of experience.
How's that mythical land you're inhabiting?
Professional journalists are just better at googling.
I hear a three-digit IQ is, in fact, a disqualifying condition.
Actually, based on my uninformed, mysanthropic and cynical view of the current generation, I figure it might have been more like:
Lawyer: "Mr Burns, can you tell us in your own words what... Err... Your honour, the jury is playing with their phones again instead of paying attention!"
Judge: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I remind you that you're supposed to pay attention? Someone's freedom is at stake here."
Jurror 1: "Sorry. I was paying attention."
Lawyer: "Your honour, please ask her what we were talking about."
Prosecution: "Objection!"
Judge: "Overruled. Mrs Smith, can you tell us what the last question to the witness was?"
Jurror 1: "I can has cheezburger? LOL!"
Witness: "Did she actually pronounce 'LOL'?"
Judge: "Silence, please. Ok, I see. Next member of the jury? Can you tell us what was being debated?"
Jurror 2: "Chewbacca defense?"
Lawyer: "What? Your honour, I must..."
Judge: "Silence, please! Next member of the jurry? You, please?"
Jurror 3: "Huh? What?"
Judge: "What are you using that phone for, anyway? I must remind you that you're not allowed to look up any other information about the case than that presented in this court."
Jurror 3: "Ah, nah, my girlfriend was sexting me her breasts. Sorry."
Jurror 2: "Me too."
Jurror 3: "I hope you mean your girlfriend."
Jurror 2: "Nah, yours."
Jurror 3: "Well, your mom was sexting me hers."
Jurror 2: "Dude, mom is dead..."
Jurror 4: "Geesh, guys, cut it out. I was cybering this hot chick and just wrote "your mom" by mistake. Crap."
Jurror 5 blushes and quickly folds his phone and shoves it in the pocket.
Jurror 4: "Crap, now she logged out."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Just last week I was summoned for jury duty. This is maybe the 5th time I've been called up. Each time I was part of a pool of potential jurors. Roll would be taken, then names, presumably at random, would be called to fill the jury box plus extras. These would be examined and various people rejected and new ones called up till they had a jury plus alternates. So far, I've never even been called up to be examined. But this last time, unusually, it took 3 days for a jury to be selected, and the judge kept admonishing us not to twitter or google him or the lawyers or try to find out anything about the case even when we were being selected. On the 2nd or 3rd day he even said it had come to his attention that some of us were texting during the selection process and he said if we were caught doing that the cell phone or whatever would be taken away from us.
Once I remember I was in a conversation with 4 or 5 other people, one of whom happened to be a lawyer, and the subject of some fairly famous case came up, though I don't remember which one now, but apparently people were surprised at the verdict rendered by the jury. The lawyer said that when that happened he'd be inclined to go with the jury because they would be presented with all the evidence, while everyone else would see slanted opinions and speculation in the papers. This was back in the 1980s by the way. Maybe things have changed since then. I understand there was a lawyer who became famous for perfecting the science of jury selection. I found out about her when I happened to read her obituary in the paper (she had died of cancer I believe). I don't remember her name.
In some of the past cases where I was in the jury pool I could tell people were deliberately saying things to get themselves rejected but generally I thought potential jurors were thoughtful and honest during the selection process. Maybe just showing up was enough to indicate you were ready to do your civic duty.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Actually this is incorrect. Jurors are supposed to try the facts, AND, the law. Why? Because if the law is unjust, then it should not be upheld. You should research something called jury nullification. Here is a good place to start-- http://www.fija.org/
Libertas in infinitum
I served on a jury for a drug case. It ended up in plea bargain by the 2nd day but we found out afterwards that the guy had 9 priors for drug possession and dealing. That would have been nice to know but of course it was never brought up. You can't dispute facts. I don't think it would sway me as long as the facts back up the accusation the whole process really opened my eyes that the jury system needs some revamping. Everyone claimed financial hardships or that they have babies/elderly to take care of so all that was left on the jury was people in good jobs or retired. they wouldn't let us take notes either and many don't. that's a problem to me. I may have a question or something strikes me as a half-truth but i can forget it by the end. juries should be able to ask questions of the witnesses and some states allow it, others don't. I also feel the accused should HAVE to take the stand. if they want to plead the fifth then let them do that on the stand but let the jury hear the questions from the defense and prosecution along with the answers/half answers/pleading the 5th.
Earlier this year I was a juror in a civil trial about a slip-and-fall in a parking lot. Simple stuff, nothing that would have been in the paper, but the case related to the layout of the parking lot where the accident occurred, and it was very tempting to look at the satellite photos on Google Maps (I did so after the trial). I would bet that most cases are like this: relatively few would make it into the media, but for many some potentially relevant information is out there, and requires zero effort to find.
.sig withheld by request
Bill Clinton issued pardons on far worse offenses as political rewards
TBH I never understood why the US puts up with presidential pardons. Why on earth can the president pardon someone and how is that different from having a King?
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
The idea that jurors need to be entirely ignorant of the case is a relatively recent invention and arguably a bad idea. If you go back to a time when people lived in such small towns that everybody was likely to know everybody, you find a different notion: that it was good for jurors to know not just the facts but the people involved, because already knowing a witness made it easier to accurately judge the credibility of that person. Turning courts into fact-free zones like they are today makes lawyers and judges more powerful but it's not clear it produces better verdicts.
I play Nerd-Folk!