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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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: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: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.