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

5 page paper?

[GodfatherofSoul]

She didn't snap a bra in chemistry class. I'd expect some community service at least.

Re:5 page paper?

[gandhi_2]

Well, technically she isn't guilty of anything until she's had a fair and speedy trial by her peers.

Re:5 page paper?

[Dyinobal]

I use my latent psychic ability to detect BS in online posts. It's just something I learned to do long before I remember probably since the internet was made.

Re:5 page paper?

[tomhudson]

Technically, the judge HAS tried her. The judge has the authority to convict her of contempt of court. Up here, when a juror does that, they're looking at up to 2 years in jail, which is one reason why you don't see jurors talking about jury deliberations even decades after a trial - what is said in deliberations is forever secret.

Ex-parte communication with the defendant is also a good way to go to jail.

Re:5 page paper?

[TheOtherChimeraTwin]

you agree not to talk about the case with anyone else

Agree?? When do you have an opportunity to agree to anything in jury service? You are required to show up on such-and-such date at such-and-such time. You may not wear shorts, tank tops, beach shoes or t-shirts, or any clothing with offensive language or logos. Don't do this, and for heaven's sake, don't do that! Jurors lose quite a bit of freedom when they get that notice in the mail.

The possible penalties are made abundantly clear.

Yes indeed, the penalties are stacked neatly up to the ceiling.

Re:5 page paper?

[causality]

Yeah, I know, but this is still a whoosh...

Her “peers” are, logically, people who are just as dumb as she is... and what better way to flush out dumb people than by posting something dumb on facebook and seeing who “likes” it?

Dumb people aren't all that hard to identify. They're usually rather eager to advertise this fact about themselves, though unwittingly.

There's nothing like a good old car(-related) analogy so I'll give a driving analogy as an example. A lot of people don't seem to understand that the long turning lanes on many major roads are there for a purpose. They exist so that a driver doesn't have to start slowing down for the turn until after going into the turning lane, eliminating the need to slow down all of the traffic behind them just to make a turn. Yet a lot of drivers don't understand this and will gladly slow down everyone behind them, needlessly, completely oblivious to how their actions affect others. If you ever see traffic slow to a crawl on a day when there aren't that many cars on the road, it's because of a multitude of people who may be several miles ahead doing inconsiderate things like this.

That's generally the mark of stupid people everywhere. They are capricious, self-serving, and do not act in a deliberate fashion with a full awareness of how their actions affect others. Most of them are not malicious because malice would require intent and an ability to plan one's actions according to that intent, something the stupid are generally unable or unwilling to do. A juror who, if not for this judge, would have conducted a jury trial with an obvious bias without regard for the jeopardy the accused is in would be another iteration of the same pattern.

Re:5 page paper?

[Cwix]

And that's yet another reason you don't want to have anything to do with facebook, twitter, ping or other social networking sites

They can and will ruin your life if they feel like it.

FTFY

Re:5 page paper?

[NevarMore]

I wish jury service was a voluntary duty, not unlike voting.

I don't. Then you get busybodies, bored seniors, moral crusaders, wannabe cops, wannabe lawyers, wannabe judges, and people desperate for the small paycheck instead of a jury of my peers.

Re:5 page paper?

[gfreeman]

The issue isn't getting out of jury service, the issue is that once you are a citizen you are given no choice but to "agree" to a number of laws.

FTFY.

Re:5 page paper?

[Altus]

A friend of mine came up with a name for the group of people who drive in these kinds of passively inconsiderate ways, impeding everyone's forward progress.

He calls them "The Anti-destination League"

Re:5 page paper?

[Lumpy]

Unfortunately the law does not allow judges to keep stupid people off of juries. Some kind of anti discrimination thing...

Plus remember the Average IQ is 100, that means 2 out of 5 people are below 100 IQ and are therefore Morons. we cant discriminate against 2/3rds of the population.

Re:5 page paper?

[clone53421]

I find the easiest way to identify a dumb person is by seeing who makes narcissistic, holier-than-thou posts on Slashdot. Thanks for making my life so easy.

There’s no +1 for “Recursive.”

Re:5 page paper?

[Abcd1234]

I wish jury service was a voluntary duty, not unlike voting.

Funny, I wish voting was mandatory, not unlike jury duty.

Re:5 page paper?

[sanosuke001]

Me, I wish voting/jury duty was reserved for those that can prove they know something about whats going on instead of getting the most retarded people in the country deciding the fate of everyone.

Re:5 page paper?

[jeremymiles]

But Gottman didn't know what he was doing when it came to data analysis.

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.

Facebook had nothing to do with it...

[Darkness404]

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.'"

Facebook had nothing to do with it, the problem is people aren't objective. The injustice would have happened no matter if she didn't post anything about it.

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:about time..

[clone53421]

+1 hell yes.

Whether or not the punishment was too lenient / harsh, this needs to get way more publicity...

One juror learning this the hard way: $250 and a 5-page essay
Millions of people getting even half a clue about how the system is designed to work by hearing about this: (quite literally) priceless.

Re:Once again, people...

[gorzek]

It's not even about common sense, it's more a problem with discretion. I cannot believe some of the things people tweet or post about on Facebook--things that I would think any self-respecting person would know better than to share with the world. It's like it's a contest to see who has the most embarrassing dirty laundry. Then there are the people who think their every stray thought is worth a Facebook status update. Well, it isn't. Odds are, no one cares.

Most people would be better off if they just kept their mouths shut and their keyboards silent.

Re:Unasked Question

[b0bby]

I find it hard to believe no one is asking exactly why the defendants son is creeping around looking up jurors from his father's trial on Facebook.

Um, it was the lawyer's son who looked it up, and the defendant was female.

Re:What's wrong with this?

[clone53421]

Jurors aren’t supposed to think, they’re supposed to know. And how exactly can you know until you’ve heard both sides of the case?

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:The problem with jurors

[panda]

Having gone for jury duty in two states, I can tell you that what you say is not always the case.

I served on a jury in Kentucky in 1999 or so, and the other jurors struck me as intelligent, level-headed people. We were there to do our civic duty and we did it well, I think. We returned our verdict based on the evidence presented at trial. That is what was asked of us and that *is* what we did.

Fast forward about 8 to 10 years and I was called to jury duty in Massachusetts. I was saddened by the number of people deliberately lying in an effort to get out of jury duty. What I saw were a bunch of selfish, self-centered consumers, rather than citizens who were willing to do their civic duty to at least attempt to preserve the notion of a fair trial in this country.

My number was called and I sat in the box. The attorneys have the right to strike jurors for any reason. I was called to the bench to answer questions about my previous jury service and about a past experience as a witness in a trial. I answered those questions as truthfully as I could given the amount of time that had elapsed since either had occurred. One of the attorneys decided to strike me based on my answers to those questions, or perhaps for some other reason. (Ironically, I "got out of" jury duty faster than the people who were lying about knowing something about the case, or being biased, etc.)

It sickens me when I hear people say things like "too dumb to get out of jury duty." That attitude has contributed to the decline of the criminal justice system in the USA. It's not the only factor, of course, but it is part of the problem when people do not want to participate in something that is vital to freedom in our country.

Re:Wow, just wow.

[billius]

$250 fine. First class, well done. You hit back at someone doing you a favour when they do a bad job. *clap clap clap*.

What a self-important moron this judge is.

A favor? They call it "jury duty" for a reason. Under the 6th Amendment, every US Citizen has the right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury and it is the duty of all citizens to help provide for this right. Obviously the devil is in the details when it comes to finding a truly impartial jury, but it's a pretty obvious (and serious!) breach of decorum and a complete abandonment of duty to post "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're GUILTY" on Facebook for crying out loud. If she really didn't want to be there, all she had to do was make up an extreme point of view on something and she would have been dismissed. She was letting down all parties involved in the case and all of her fellow citizens by doing this. I bet if she ever got in trouble with the law, she'd want a juror absent of anyone make snide comments about her on Facebook.

Re:another reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Jury nullification is an extremely closely guarded "secret." DAs don't talk about it. Judges don't talk about it. Mentioning it during a juror interview is a good way to have yourself immediately ejected from the building. They don't teach it in civics class (and if they did, the teacher would be "disappeared" from teaching the class). The entire justice system does not want you to know about nullification and they will go to great lengths to make sure you don't know about it. If you mention it in a room full of other potential jurors, everybody will be sent home.

So don't try to tell somebody he's an idiot because he doesn't know about it.