Facebook Post Juror Gets Fined, Removed, Assigned Homework

eldavojohn writes "A Michigan judge removed a juror after a Facebook comment and also fined her $250 and required her to write a five-page paper about the constitutional right to a fair trial. The juror was 'very sorry' and the judge chastised her, saying, 'You violated your oath. You had decided she was already guilty without hearing the other side.'"

Comments

Re:Unasked Question

[kent_eh]

I find it disturbing that anyone in the courtroom (or associated with the process) even knows the names of the jurors.
When I was a juror we were assigned numbers before we even arrived at the court for selection. AFAIK the judge didn't even know our names.
During selection, we were asked if we knew the accused, the victim, any of the lawyers, the police officers involved, or any of the witnesses (and their names were listed) or if we had any dealings with anyone in the small town that they had all come from. Any of those would make you not able to sit on the jury for this case.
We were also strongly warned not to speak about the details of the trial with anyone other than the other jurors. Ever.

Of course, that''s the Canadian court system. In other countries, YMMV.

Re:Facebook had nothing to do with it...

[Sprouticus]

And I was on a jury for a murder trial where we debated for many hours before finding the person not guilty (the fucker was guilty but the state did not prove their case). The point being that your experience is interesting but not universal.

Yes people make up their mind beofre things start.. But that is why yu are supposed to deliberate, supposed to discuss. To make sure

a) everyone understands the evidence
b) everyone understands what the evidence MEANS
c) everyone can explain their reasoning.

Sure you can take the evidence and make it fit your preconceived notions. But if yu are on the jury with other people who have a brain they will see through that and make you explain yourself.

Re:5 page paper?

[hairyfeet]

What is fucking scary is without FB she would have already convicted this person without hearing any evidence just because of their (insert looks, ethnicity, race, etc) and sadly this is all too common. True Story:

My mother always taught us to do our civic duty, so when she was chosen for jury duty she used her vacation time at the hospital to go. At the end of the trial she came in white as a ghost and said "If you ever get in trouble NEVER have a jury, always ask for a judge!" and when I asked her what spooked her here is what she said. The trial was an arson case, and she thought it was pretty obvious from the get go there wasn't any case there at all. There was no motive, the guy didn't have enough insurance to cover his losses and ended up losing everything. On top of that even the state's arson investigator admitted on the stand they had NO clue as to what had started the fire or where, and couldn't rule out a short or a grease flare up. Yet she had to hang the jury at 11-1 to CONVICT! Why? "Because he is Italian and Italians are in the mob and burn things. Haven't you ever seen "Goodfellas?"

So yes, this man if it wasn't for my mother would have done 15 years because he was Italian and even though he was in mudsuck AR he must be in the Gambino crime family and do arson jobs because of a movie!

And frankly with the absolute shit pay they give juries most with a brain like my mom simply can't afford to walk away from their good paying job to attend, so we literally have juries made up of "12 folks too stupid to get out of jury duty". Sad but true, my friends. Sad but true.