Judge Declares Mistrial Because of Wikipedia

Pickens writes "The Palm Beach Post reports that a police officer convicted of drugging and raping a family member will get a new trial because the jury forewoman brought a Wikipedia article into deliberations. Broward Circuit Judge Stanton Kaplan declared a mistrial after Fay Mason admitted in court that she had downloaded information about 'rape trauma syndrome' and sexual assault from Wikipedia and brought it to the jury room. 'I didn't read about the case in the newspaper or watch anything on TV,' says Mason. 'To me, I was just looking up a phrase.' Judge Kaplan called all six jurors into the courtroom and explained that Mason had unintentionally tainted their verdict and endangered the officer's right to a fair trial. Mason does not face any penalties for her actions."

Comments

Sorry, doesn't always work out that way....

[macraig]

The judge then takes responsibility for making sure the information you get is reliable, rather than some shit you found on the internet.

That doesn't always happen. My last jury stint involved a trial with more than one defendant and an invocation of the so-called "felony murder rule". The judge wanted each jury member to affirm that they would treat the felony murder rule as Gospel, AND made this demand WITHOUT any detailed discussion of its value or history. When I specifically asked for that, the judge flatly denied my request. So I did what any freethinker would have done: during lunch I "broke the rules" using the court house's free wifi and researched the felony murder rule on my Pocket PC.

Given my experience I'm not inclined to fault this woman for what she did, even though she was more surreptitious than I was. She likely figured the judge would have simply denied such a request, as the judge did mine. Our current juror system truly does favor ignorant valueless robots. I'm not happy at all making that observation.