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

Re:Well

[commodore64_love]

What's this "You must wait 6 hours to post a second comment" nonsense???

(shrug). Does this mean jurors can't reference Britannica either? Or Websters Dictionary? It seems kinda silly the jury must be kept ignorant. What if you do not know the meaning of the words you hear in the courtroom, like "hearsay" or "sustained".

No wonder we see Innocent people being sent to jail on flimsy evidence like "he was leaning over the body & breathing into her mouth". (20+ years later DNA evidence proved that guy was not the killer.) Our juries are not informed enough to do a proper job.

700 MB is still the most common size found on isohunt.com searches.

And while SOME like yourself may prefer higher-quality 1500 or 3000 MB HDTV rips, I actually prefer the opposite. I look for those "NapisyPL" rips that are 70 or 150 MB, or on ipodnova.com for 250 MB rips, since they can be downloaded in about ten minutes.

-C64_love (banned from posting for one day)