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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."
Will Jimmy Wales appeal?
So only an ignorant Jury is a fair one?
It wasn't cited, the jury foreman was unsure of a specific phrase and used wikipedia to look it up. Honest mistake. Her proper course of action probably would have been to ask the judge to provide some literature about it instead of going out on her own to get it.
I would never cite wikipedia, but it is still an effective tool while doing research.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
It's possible that she wasn't college educated or wasn't college educated when Wikipedia was around. Remember, jury members come from all walks of life.
So what makes a reference acceptable? I mean even the Encyclopedia Britannica contains errors or has entries that have changed / are out of date.
You're not allowed to bring Encyclopedia Britannica into jury deliberations either. No outside sources of information, that's the rule.
In the end, I think Wikipedia should be an allowed reference source as long as _all_ (and not just from wikipedia) sources are checked by the court later on.
The point is not accuracy, the point is to allow the court to control what evidence the jury has access to so that both sides have a fair shot at rebutting or clarifying anything that might otherwise hurt their case. The proper thing to do is for the jury to ask the judge for more information, and have the judge come up with with the encyclopedia article or other source deemed appropriate for the purposes of the trial, possibly in consultation with both the prosecution and defense.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
How can an encyclopedia taint a verdict? Isn't it the task of a court to understand the vocabulary used in a trial?
The definition of 'rape' in a Wikipedia article may not be the same as what is on the Florida books. And they had been instructed, as is usual, not to do any research on their own.
"If I was on trial I sure as hell wouldn't want the jury looking things up on wikipedia"
Well I'd prefer them doing some research rather than being a clueless bunch of fucks who make their decision about my freedom based on a hunch.
You're not supposed to look at any of those; you're only supposed to use the information given to you in court.
My understanding is that's not correct. You are only supposed to use the facts of the case as presented in court. Learning about terminology and/or phraseology used in the court, AFAIK, shouldn't cause a mistrial.
As someone else pointed out, Wikipedia is well known for incorrect information but I'm not really sure how that differs from someone walking about with an already incorrect and/or incomplete and/or complete ignorance of the definition/phrase/terminology.
But ultimately, judges are emperors of their own kingdom so they frequently get latitude to create their own rules. I have no idea of this is one of those situations or not.
So it's like the other guy said. The entire system is rigged to make sure the jury is completely ignorant.
Ensuring that the jury can't call bullshit on some bit of rhetoric or evidence is not justice.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Do we REALLY want a justice system where the jurists are encouraged to be ignorant?
When searching for "reference materials for juries" I came across numerous links to some of the most absurd things. One example of jury misconduct was listed as using a dictionary for the purpose of understanding a legal term.
When jurists actually want to know and understand what is going on and how things work, I am encouraged that the justice system "wants" to work as it was intended. But when I see the officers of the legal system blocking certain aspects and elements of the justice system, I have to feel disappointed and disheartened.
really? the whole thing is coming down? could have fooled me.
I could have sworn that it's still going strong as a moderately reliable source of information which is vastly more accessible than almost any other in history.
No, one would prefer a jury be informed by the testimony of an expert witness who has been accepted by the court as having credentials and experience in the field and not a bunch of guys int heir basements edit-warring over an article or page on a subject they have no direct research experience in.
You aren't just allowed to use information that was provided during trial, legal terms can be thrown around in court yet never get explained to the jury. The juror should have asked the judge for clarification about the topic, at which point the judge would have provided background material that was legally sound or at least neutral. Any reference material that wasn't cleared by the judge would have been equally bad, it's not just Wikipedia being singled out.
In theory this is the kind of thing (ignorance of key parts of the trial) that jury selection is supposed to cover, but these days they waste time trying to gerrymander a win based on statistics and don't actually bother to ask jurors useful questions - like whether they know what sexual assault when the individual has been charged with sexual assault.
Moof!
Well I'd prefer them doing some research rather than being a clueless bunch of fucks who make their decision about my freedom based on a hunch.
No, I want my defense team educating the jury rather than an anonymous edit on Wikipedia. I would also expect the prosecution to be fact-checking everything my defense team says, and the reverse would also be true.
This way, the only things that the jury learns are things that both sides agree are facts. Or, if it is something that is in disagreement, the jury learns that something is not a fact, but a point that one side says is true while the other side says it is false. This is core to the American justice system.
If they had to look something up on Wikipedia, then the defense team did a poor job. Thankfully, the justice system accounts for this & allows me to appeal with a new defense team.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
I just finished jury duty so this is all fresh in my mind. The jurors job is to determine if the evidence presented shows that the defendant violated specific laws. The judge lets you know specifically what the laws are and explains what they mean if it is too cryptic for a non-lawyer to understand. In the case I was in it basically meant that all 6 of us were used as human lie detectors to see which witnesses were the most truthful. We were encouraged to ask questions if anything was unclear about the law, evidence or charges. Outside interpretations would have tainted the whole thing.
I've served twice. If something came up we wanted more information on, we'd ask the bailiff, during a break, and he/she would pass the request on to the judge, and the judge would address it in some way, either with a description or by bringing someone in.
In my first trial, they had brought in a piece of defective equipment as evidence. During a break we felt that we should have a better look at it, so we asked, and were then allowed to go right up to it to inspect it in detail. This up-close inspection allowed us to come to a decision quicker.
Sorry , but since when are lawyers experts on every possible area? Would you trust a lawyer to give someone the inside on computer hacking? No. So the lawyers just repeat parrot fashion what they've found out from somewhere else - possibly wikipedia.
Declaring a mistrial here was the only effective way to guarantee the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial, including the right to examine the evidence against him. There's quite a bit of jurisprudence on the use of expert testimony to make sure it's relable, and allowing the jury to just Google whatever they want for information just tosses that process out the door.
Imagine you've been falsely accused of child molestation, based on the faulty science of "recovered memories." Would you want the opportunity to challenge the evidence against you through cross-examination, or would you prefer it if the jury could just pull up some article written by a quack and be swayed by it, with no chance for you or your defense to explain the basic fallacies it contained?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
How can an encyclopedia taint a verdict?
How can an online editable encyclopedia taint a verdict? You can't fathom how something that could be written to by either the prosecution or the defence during the course of a trial could taint a verdict?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
That if the prosecutor had withheld exculpatory evidence that the judge would not have done this?
The agents of the state can literally get away with "murder by state" (some prosecutors have actually successfully defended the prosecution of likely innocent men on death row), but a jury forewoman cannot research a technical term.
I'd be more sympathetic if the law actually stated that if a prosecutor violates any procedure in court, intentionally or unintentionally, all charges are dropped with prejudice (meaning they can never be refiled).
**All charges**
So it's like the other guy said. The entire system is rigged to make sure the jury is completely ignorant.
Ensuring that the jury can't call bullshit on some bit of rhetoric or evidence is not justice.
No, the only ignorance here is what you are displaying. The jury has the right to request clarification on a term (in this case, they used the term 'rape trauma syndrome' in the court case and a juror didn't know what it meant) and then the judge, in consultation with the prosecution and defense, will provide the jury with the definition.
As others have mentioned, Wikipedia can often be very incorrect. But in addition when dealing with terms tied to technology or medicine, there may be many interpretations of meaning depending on who you ask. (As a programmer, I have a different definition of 'hanging process' than a lawyer does) It is important that the jury is understanding the terms used in the trial as the prosecution and defense are using them, and you can't do that with a quick hop to Wikipedia.
That's why the jury is not supposed to be relying on outside information. If the prosecution says 'rape trauma syndrome' means butterflies and rainbows, and the defense agrees with that definition, it's utterly irrelevant to the case what the real definition is, because that's not what the prosecution and defense are talking about.
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.
Sorry , but since when are lawyers experts on every possible area? Would you trust a lawyer to give someone the inside on computer hacking? No. So the lawyers just repeat parrot fashion what they've found out from somewhere else - possibly wikipedia.
Of course not. That's why you'd hear from an expert witness, you know, someone who testifies under oath and who both the defense and the prosecution agree can speak authoritatively about the subject at hand.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
This way, the only things that the jury learns are things that both sides agree are facts. Or, if it is something that is in disagreement, the jury learns that something is not a fact, but a point that one side says is true while the other side says it is false.
Isn't the entire point of a jury to decide what is fact and what is not? A juror that has the wherewithal to do his own research is going to be better prepared to do that.
The real reason juries aren't allowed to do their own research is because controlling the fact presented to the jury is one of the few ways the judge can control the jury. Judges will even exclude fact, that both sides agree are facts, because it might lead the jury to make a decision the judge disapproves of.
Sure, they dress it up as fairness. As if the truth could be prejudicial. If that were actually the case, we'd have judges ruling on what sort of evidence scientists can consider before they make their conclusions. No, the only way to make correct decisions is to weigh *all* the evidence.
Consider the "Exclusionary rule". It's intended as a deterrent to keep cops from presenting evidence illegally obtained. But to enforce this rule you must have tight control over what the jury knows. But we already have a deterrent for when people break the law. Prosecute the cops who broke the law to obtain evidence and you no longer need the exclusionary rule, and so you no longer need to control what the jury knows. So you have better behaved cops, and better informed juries. It's a win for everyone.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I was recently selected for jury duty. I was informed outright that I was not to speak about the case as expected, but the judge also warned that I was not to use the internet to do any sort of research on the case, and that all questions should be passed to the bailiff.
Why isn't this a standard procedure everywhere?
And what if no side called such a witness?
Assuming we're talking about a criminal trial, then you find "not guilty". It's the prosecution's job to prove the case. If they didn't, then they lose.
A civil trial is less cut-and-dry, but the same basic rule holds -- the plaintiff needs to prove his case. If he doesn't, then he doesn't win.
If they falsely assumed I have a clue while I don't?
Your lack of clue is actually part of your oath as a juror, to only consider the evidence provided to you in the courtroom by the lawyers under the observation of the judge. If they falsely assume you have a clue when you don't, that is their problem.
Well, in a criminal trial, if you honestly don't know then you have a reasonable doubt and don't convict. Better 10 guilty men go free and all that.
If you have a question or a misunderstanding you ask the bailiff and he will pass on your request to the judge. The judge then has a say as to whether or not you receive said information and in what form. If the prosecution didn't present its case clearly, competently, and completely then it is not your job to do so for them. You are there to judge the facts; if those are not presented it is not your job to go out and find them.
Imagine you've been falsely accused of child molestation based on the fault science of "recovered memories". The judge considers this settled science, so your defense team cannot question the scientific basis of the evidence. (This happens all the time with fingerprints). Wouldn't you want the jury to be able to do some research on their own to discover that recovered memories are a load of shit?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
it's utterly irrelevant to the case what the real definition is, because that's not what the prosecution and defence are talking about.
What if the prosecution and defence are in cahoots together to get a innocent man thrown in jail to protect the son of some rich asshole? The police are famous in Canada for prosecuting the mentally handicapped for stuff they didn't do, they want a conviction not justice or the truth.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/06/f-wrongfully-convicted.html
There is a small problem if you do it that way. What happens when police routinely gather evidence illegally to nab someone and juries routinely let the police off the hook by way of jury nullification? Do you really think that the cop who barged into a suspect's house without a warrant and found loads of kiddie porn on the premises would be punished for that action by the jury? What world do you live in? The only way that would work is if we got rid of jury trial for police misconduct like that.
It's sad to say but the 4th amendment isn't really all that popular. People never hear how it protects them from the heavy hand of the state, but they hear frequently about how it allows criminals to get off on a technicality.
They are not allowed to look up material about the case. The definition of a term in general may or may not be about the case. That's a complex question of law. Say for example this rape occurred on an "Ottoman" and a juror looked up what that word meant...
Frankly I think the judge over reacted by declaring a mistrial.
Yes they are. But they aren't part of the government and don't have the right friends. They aren't part of the elite in terms of education and upbringing. They don't read the same newspapers as lawmakers, do the same activities. In other words they offer a genuinely different perspective.
A person trained in law by the very sorts of people that made the laws would not offer that check on government. I'm very thankful for juries.
You say that like the juror had no other means of research. She could have requested material from the judge. That is the right way to do it in a trial.
It's not that easy. For one thing, 11 out of the 12 jurors can't do that -- they have to convince the jury foreman to do that for them. And they can't do so anonymously. They have to admit their ignorance to 11 others, and then convince them that it's needed, and face the scorn of those who get irritated because it's going to hold them up for longer. I.e. an immense peer pressure.
And finally, they get one shot. They get a lecture that may or may not be what they wanted, and no chance to ask the expert questions.
Is it better than nothing? Possibly, in some cases. But it's a far cry from every juror being provided by the information they need to make an informed judgment. I.e. jurors often follow the others (groupthink), or let their feelings make the judgment for them. And work twice as hard to get out of jury duty the next time.
That has to be the dumbest thing I've read on here all morning.
What, that they let high school dropouts on juries? I have news for you, buddy -- the uneducated have the same rights as you and me, and moreover, that's the way it should be.
Seriously. Well, after the judge getting pissed that a juror wanted to be better informed and *gasp* used the interwebs to do so.
Ok, strike the "you and" from "you and me", because you just showed your ignorance. A juror isn't supposed to, and shouldn't, hear anything but the testamony and evidence presented in court. Anything else, even wikipedia, even the dictionary, is hearsay.
I'll give you an example of internet bullshit from an untrustworthy source trusted by many: Partnership For a Drug-Free America
That's not just bullshit, but scientifically debunked bullshit. A statistical study was done about two years ago of long term cigarette smokers, long term pot smokers, long term smokers of both, and nonsmokers.
The researchers expected those who smoked both to have twice or more the cancers of those who only smoked cigs, and expected more cancers from pot smokers than cigarette smokers, since all smoke contains carcinogens.
What they found instead was that cigarette smokers had twice the cancers of those who smoked both (who had a far higher incidence of cancer than nonsmokers), but that those who only smoked pot actually had fewer cancers than nonsmokers, although the difference was stastically insignifigant.
If I was in court on a marijuana posession charge, I damned sure wouldn't wan tthe jury going to THAT web page with its lies, distortions, and other propaganda. Would you?
Free Martian Whores!
The fear of having evidence excluded is probably a lot more effective as a deterrent for bad cops than the (non)risk of eventual prosecution if caught doing something illegal.
The fear of having evidence excluded is no deterrent at all. If you don't do an illegal search there is only one possibility, you will have no evidence. If you do the illegal search, there's at least a chance of getting the evidence admitted. Without a real punishment for cops when they break the law, there is no deterrent for illegal searches.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They are not allowed to look up material about the case. The definition of a term in general may or may not be about the case. That's a complex question of law. Say for example this rape occurred on an "Ottoman" and a juror looked up what that word meant...
Frankly I think the judge over reacted by declaring a mistrial.
If that juror looked up "Ottoman" on Wikipedia and someone had decided to troll the hell out of it by replacing the content of the page with a snippet of the BDSM page and this picture, that could be a problem.
The rules exist not because things like that happen constantly, but because they can happen. Excepting the rule on a circumstantial basis exacerbates the inevitable probability that such an exception is the wrong decision.
Rathering "ten guilty men go free than one be wrongfully imprisoned" and all that.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
In addition to Hymie!'s answer above you can also ask the Baliff who will pass the request on to the judge. The judge will then explain or find a way for it to be explained to you, sometimes needing to confer with defense/prosecution. At no point is doing original research as a juror and deciding for yourselves what sources are admissible in court or not an option. How would you feel as a defendant if someone convicted you because a Wikipedia entry was slightly incorrect that day and your lawyer didn't even know it was influencing the jury?
The point is not having your decision BIASED by public hearsay. Its accepted you come into court loaded with imperfect understanding of facts and concepts. But permitting people to look things up on the internet DURING a trial is pretty much the same as allowing the juror's decision to be coerced by Fox News or a mere website.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
but you can turn that around. You ask the judge "what's an ottoman?", and he can tell you that it's the BDSM thing, because he wants to see the defendant found guilty. This is the risk of allowing a single person to be the final arbiter of 'truth'. Yes, I know that the defence could appeal the decision to give that as a definition, and even work their way all the way up through the courts, but that's still only about 20 people, at most. If the judges at the very top are as corrupt as, or in collusion with, the judge at the bottom, 'truth' can simply be redefined, and the jury left making a decision in ignorance.
FGD 135
but the juror may have read the wiki page in question before being called for jury duty. would it have been all-right then?
my point is that people are prejudiced. when you call a person for jury duty, you trust them to disregard their pre-conceived notions and biases. if you are trusting someone to do that, why is it such a big deal to look up info on the net? if the juror was capable of putting aside her prejudices before looking at wikipedia, she is trustworthy even after that. she will still not allow some wikipedia page to take over her judgement.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Here's the problem. This is a *trial*. That means any assertion that bears on the outcome can be challenged by either side either to its accuracy, relevance or interpretation.
Suppose they jury convicts the defendant based on this wikipedia article. The defendant doesn't even *know* this has been brought into deliberations, and has no chance of challenging it.
I've just been through this. As you deliberate, you can submit questions. These are debated in the courtroom by the prosecutor and defense attorney in front of the judge as you wait in the jury room. Then they bring you out and the judge provides you with a narrowly worded answer. We asked a number of questions about the law and the specific criteria the prosecution had to meet in order for us to convict. We didn't ask any CSI type evidence questions. I suppose if we had, they'd have been debated, the judge would have called us in and most likely told us the question was not relevant. If both sides agreed to it, I suppose she might have read us a short, carefully worded statement.
Let me tell you, this is very, very hard. You *don't* have all the information you'd *like* to have. What you have is the information the two sides have brought up and which the judge has admitted into the case. Some jurors create all kinds of cock-eyed theories. In the case I was recently on, speculations about how much force would be needed to produce bruises of a certain kind. It's very natural in that case to want to do a little independent research, but even if you get *good* information, you aren't necessarily qualified to apply that information. If that information (a) helped either side and (b) could be explained in a way that laymen could understand without going astray, it would have been brought up.
We were very frustrated by things we weren't allowed to see, and speculation about them was rife. Why didn't the prosecution call such and so as a witness? Why didn't the defense? Why couldn't we see the police report? What would happen to the defendant if he was found guilty?
The judge was kind enough to address us afterward and answer many of these questions. We weren't allowed to see the police report because it contained the officer's opinion, and couldn't be cross-examined by the defense. Instead we got the officer himself on the stand, although his memory was far from perfect. Each side managed to slip in bits of the police report by cross examining the witness under the pretense of impeaching their credibility. "You say such and so. I'd like you to look at this statement you made to the police. Is what you just testified consistent with what you told the police?" etc.
Many things we'd have liked to know about the defendant the *judge* didn't know. They hadn't been brought up by the prosecution, probably because they'd have no legal bearing, and even the judge wasn't allowed to bias herself by doing independent research. Likewise the judge didn't know why one side or the other declined to call a certain witness, and was not allowed to pry into that.
One of the most difficult tasks in the jury room was wrestling with the various castles in the air that some jurors spun. You go into the jury room with the information presented at trial and the judges instructions as to the law. You also bring your experience and prejudices, because short of brain surgery there's no way to separate you from those. Letting the jurors bring in *new* information that *neither* side has had a chance to examine only increases the tendency of the jury to fall down the rabbit hole. You end up reaching a conclusion is largely a matter of giving up on all the pet theories you've generated. Out of sheer exhaustion, you circle back to the actual *evidence* presented and the criteria the prosecution is required to meet. If every day a different juror brought in a different wikipedia article creating yet another wrinkle in the deliberations, the fun would never stop.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's not at all retarded. It's to protect people from being convicted on bad information, and to make sure your constitutional right to challenge your accusers is preserved. If I write an article about how Carewolf kills people, and you end up in court accused of murder, the sixth amendment guarantees you the chance to confront your accuser and review and challenge the evidence against you. You deserve a chance to defend yourself. How can you if the jury goes off and digs up my crazy article on their own, without even mentioning to the defense, prosecution, or judge that they did so? You wouldn't even know why on earth they thought you killed people, and would have no chance to rebut my insane accusations. This is why the available information has to come through the courtroom and not jurors going off and digging up stuff on their own.
In short, your knee-jerk reaction to something you just heard about is *not* smarter than the careful conclusions of reasoned people who put a lot of actual thought into coming up with this system, and you should quit thinking of yourself as above the law.
So, your wife disagreed with the decision but accepted it anyway? That is irresponsible.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
"can understand not wanting to quote from wikipedia or something but a reference source like a vetted encyclopedia? It's ridiculous."
And just how do you expect the juror to know the difference when both encyclopedia's have a similar level of accuracy? Where does the line get drawn, tabloid articles, slashdot summaries?
There is a reason the guy in the big chair is called a judge, one of his main tasks is to judge what evidence is admissable and what lines of questioning are relevant. Anything outside those bounds is by definition prejudical material regardless of the veracity of the source.
It all boils down to the fact that when teaching oneself, the teacher and the student have identical levels of ignorance. This may be ok for learning a new skill but it is not ok for a jury to be teaching themselves "facts" that were not formally presented in the case.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.