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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.
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
While a newspaper may contain some high-level information about the case (and that's assuming you don't live in a jurisdiction with publication bans - in which case the newspapers will have nothing at all), having a web-enabled device allows you to look up background information, similar cases and their outcomes, the recently-created facebook group named "fry that bastard", and literally dozens of other ways to colour your perception of the facts being presented in the courtroom.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
"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.
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
Yes we wouldn't want anyone to color anyone's perception of any facts, of law or of the circumstances of the case, would we?
No wait, that is what the attorneys are doing and I expect news bans and Google bans are lawyers attempting to protect their income streams.
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interpretation" by a cabal of priests.
And this is why the majority of people instinctively hates lawyers, as even if most people cannot vocalize it, an average person's intrinsic moral compass is able to detect that something is profoundly wrong with the very idea of a lawyer.
Yes. That is also why jurors are not supposed to reach decisions on matters of law, only matters of fact. If the jury members need to understand the legalese someone is doing something wrong.
caritj.org
I won't argue the fact that law and legal process have become perverted, however I still like the idea that if I am in a court of law facing some kind of serious accusation, there are certain norms and procedures. For example, the prosecution is not allowed to make up completely fictitious shit just for fun, and present it to the jury in an attempt to sway their opinion. A random twitterer however, is able to make up random shit about me, and post doctored photoshops, and parrot third-hand accusations.
I'm not sure I am comfortable with the idea that the jury who is deciding my fate are all sitting there logged onto reddit reading who knows what about me while the case is still underway.
Are you?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Yes we wouldn't want anyone to color anyone's perception of any facts, of law or of the circumstances of the case, would we?
No, we wouldn't. You don't want public opinion and emotion getting in the way of the facts.
No wait, that is what the attorneys are doing and I expect news bans and Google bans are lawyers attempting to protect their income streams.
You really believe it would be better if trials were left to popular public opinion?
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
That's a great example, but not in the way that you think. The Hammurabi code didn't really work that well in practice. It turns out, it's really not that simple. You can't just build a state machine, input what happened, and output punishment. For example, do you see the difference between a woman that kills her abusive husband in the heat of the moment, and someone that abducts, tortures, and murders a random person. Our modern system is designed to deal with things like degree and severity, and adapt as times change. Lot's of laws have subjective terminology, like "reasonable", that's designed to change as people change. That's why we have lawyers.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
You're being hypocritical here. You're pontificating about the law being turned into a religion. You need people to interpret and argue because things are never as simple as you'd like them to be. You need to be able to balance contradictory ideals. A great example of this is defamation law. To balance first amendment rights and the public's "right to know", there is a different standard for public figures than there is for everyone else. In order to win a defamation case, the public figure must prove actual malice, that the person knew what they were saying wasn't true, and said it to hurt the public figure, maliciously. You need to be able to argue, and then have an impartial group of people, not swayed by public opinion, weight the arguments and make a decision.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interp
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
I agree!
Those damn intellectuals, ruining everything with their thinking and their logic, and making decisions based on evidence.
And, even worse, our schools are full of intellectual types trying to convince kids that book-learnin' is important, and that scientific method works.
Bring on the less intelligent, wholesome, family-oriented Real(tm) Americans(tm) who can just Know things without having to spend all that time worrying and checking out whether what the Know is "correct".
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.