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Lawyers Using Facebook Research For Jury Selection
unassimilatible writes "Trial lawyers are increasingly using social networking sites like Facebook to research jurors in real-time during the voir dire process. Armando Villalobos, the district attorney of Cameron County, Brownsville, Texas, last year equipped his prosecutors with iPads to scan the Web during jury selection. But what of the jurors who have their privacy settings restricted to 'friends only?' Mr. Villalobos has thought of a potential workaround: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily 'friending' his office. Faustian bargain, or another way to get out of jury duty?"
Friend their office? Hahahah, no. If that excludes me from jury duty, so be it.
bah.
If an outside law firm established some kind of quid-pro-quo relationship with jury members I have a feeling any such arrangement would be smacked down by a presiding judge. I can't imagine they will allow this to go forward with the district attorney. The jury should be impartial, and not have any appearance of favoritism of one side over the other. "Friend" the prosecution? I don't think so!
The Jurors aren't on trial and the Attornies shouldn't be able to do anything other than ask specific questions at Voir Dire as they've always done. This is a highly questionable practice they're taking on.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Jurors have no business using wifi while they're serving anyway.
This is only during voir dire - they're not serving yet. They're being picked over like cattle.
granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily "friending" his office
Or, more easily, just offer the entire jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network, and then firesheep their accounts...
But I do know that they're watching twitter.
I sent out a tweet, during one my last jury selection, at lunchtime, that we were in the middle of jury selection.
no specifics, just a "we're at this point in the process"
After lunch, I was called into the chambers and dismissed, because they had seen my tweet and were afraid that I might
engage in "too much" social media and release too much information.
I was surprised that showed up on court that quickly, actually. I don't know how they found it, but I assume
that they're performing near constant searches using jurors names.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Sodomy was made legal by the supreme court.
Read a book
I dont understand why they are using and Egyptian newborn to help with this! What does she even know about the legal system?
Until Apple came out with the iANAL!
granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily "friending" his office.
So what if I don't have a Facebook account? Will I be automatically disqualified from serving on the jury?
Have gnu, will travel.
Let's say I am a juror candidate and at any point in the process a representative from one side of the court were to approach me and says "here is 100,000 dollars, if you become a juror the money is yours if you show favor for my client". Isn't this illegal? What is the different between X amount of money, a wrist watch, a service provided, or free wifi? The answer is nothing in the sense that it is all bribery. If I were a judge make it be known that I would treat this offense to the fullest of my powers.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
I don't have any real issue with checking them out on Facebook, or even getting them to friend you if they are dumb enough to do that. I think the line is clearly being crossed by offering them something (in this case internet access) for friending the prosecutor. It sets up a clear divide in the jury pool, as people who have open profiles and those who don't want to allow the prosecutor access don't get internet access. It also puts the defender at a disadvantage, since they obviously now have to offer them something to get the same access.
To me FB is like public records. It is out in the public and if you can see it, then it is fair game. But basically bribing the people to give you access crosses the line.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
We may be a bit different here in Indiana, but we don't let the defendants know our names here. The judge was pretty careful about instructing us during the selection process. How could a jury possibly return a guilty verdict in a murder trial if the defendant knew their names and could then extract revenge?
This is just nuts!
Thinking about it, if a lawyer for either side were to ask to friend me or something else, I would immediately tell the judge that I needed to be excluded because I've become prejudiced against that side.
And I would be telling the truth.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Except of course that's not the goal of the jury selection process as it stands today. The counsels are not trying to get people who are the most qualified, they are trying to eliminate people who they feel are 'biased' against their position. Where 'biased' frequently means 'having any opinions at all'. And since the prosecution tries to dump anybody who might be sympathetic to the defense and the defense tries to dump anybody sympathetic to the prosecution, you're left with a pool of people who are the wishy-washiest, most indecisive, ignorant, unmotivated, etc. people available. It's a sad state of affairs.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
More fun to be at least a little obtuse and explain that "no, I do not have a Facebook".
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
In a large portion of trials, especially high profile cases, there will be some evidence that the average person would not understand. That's what expert witnesses are for, not jury selection.
If you are charged with insider trading, you're not entitled to a jury of accountants, MBAs, and I-bankers. You get the same "average" jury as everyone else. Then both sides call experts who explain the technical details in a way a lay person can understand. There is an art to presenting the "right" amount of technical information so that the jury understands the crime, without becoming bored. So, consequently experts who can explain complicated material to lay persons who may or may not have any interest in the topic without sounding condescending, boring, over the top command very high fees.
Even in mundane cases like "possession with intent to distribute" the words don't always comport to a lay understanding. E.g. "Intent" has very little to do with future plans.
you can do your best without piping the dice, since if you have a good case the conviction should be evident.
The goal of the prosecutor should not be a conviction at any price, it should be justice, and justice is not serve by selecting dimwits to serve on trial.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
You don't need to be so blatant. Just show up with an *athiest* sign on your shirt. Then you can't possibly be held in contempt, and no one will pick you anyhow. You know us Godless heathens can't be trusted!! ;-)
The urge to advertise your personal beliefs about God and insert them into unrelated discussions about jury selection is what is difficult to trust. I am not saying there is anything wrong with discussing such topics, in fact that's what I am about to do now that it's come up. It just seems out of place or off-topic in this particular discussion, like it's not driven by a desire to elaborate on the jury selection process at all but instead by the way the less-enlightened respond to what you believe.
It reminds me of those Christians who think every discussion about every subject is an opportunity to evangelize. The disservice they do to Christianity is tremendous. I say that as someone who does not believe that spirituality is something which can be organized and institutionalized. Herding the genuinely spiritual would be about as easy as herding cats. The self-aware understand the folly of group identities and the undue importance they are given. For that reason I ask that you please do not paint me with the brush of mainstream Churchianity. My point is, I believe that to a lesser degree, the disservice you are doing to Atheism is similar.
I realize you were making a joke but all the same it reflects a feeling of persecution. It sounds like you have been treated differently and maybe downright discriminated against because of your Atheism or you have seen this done to other Atheists. When Jesus taught people to love their neighbor he didn't say "oh, unless he doesn't believe what you believe". Therefore, the "Christians" who would learn you are Atheist and then treat you with anything other than genuine kindness and respect are phony because they don't really understand what they profess to believe.
It reminds me of what Mahatma Ghandi said. As a Hindu, he said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are nothing like your Christ." You don't have to identify yourself as a Christian to understand that; all it takes is the ability to think for yourself. Ghandi certainly had that talent. I don't know if this would apply to you so please forgive me for being forced to generalize here: most Atheists I have personally met weren't terribly pro-Atheism. They were anti-religion. They didn't talk very much about rationality, logic, philosophy, etc. They primarily talked about religious people. It's sort of like most US elections -- few vote for a candidate they like. Instead they vote against a candidate they really don't like.
Sadly it is rare for me to meet an Atheist who wants to edify himself and build himself up; they were far too preoccupied with trying to take religion down a peg or two despite generally being smart people, the kind with whom one can reason. That is not an attack on Atheism because it is not unique to them. If anything, it's a lament about the human condition for this pattern is not at all limited to the subject of religion. It tells me something, at least about those particular Atheists I have personally known: they have been as damaged by organized religion as any of its followers and do not wish to let that go and deepen their understanding of who they are and what they believe.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
It's worth noting that you have no constitutional right to a jury "of your peers".
The constitution dictates the following regarding juries:
1) Criminal trials must be conducted by jury; (Article 3, Section 2)
2) The right to a "speedy and public trial," by an impartial jury, in addition to some other requirements of the trial; (6th Amendment)
3) Certain federal civil trials (over amounts > $20) guarantee a jury trial; (7th Amendment)
In the ideal sense, a jury of your "peers" would be a random sampling of other citizens - we are all supposed to be equal under the law, and the practice of bringing in "expert juries" is problematic because it could set up protected classes of people for whom specific laws simply don't apply through tacit agreement not to enforce them. Think this could be a problem if a panel of doctors always sit in judgement of malpractice cases, for example? I sure do.
You can argue for a less-invasive voire-dire process, like they have in the UK, where a much stricter justification is required to dismiss a juror, but arguing for expert juries seems like a dangerous road to go down as well. Expert witnesses should be able to explain the issues to lay people. You don't need to know how to perform bypass surgery yourself to understand the facts of a case involving a botched bypass operation. You don't need to know how to construct a routing table on Linux and design a normalized database to be able to understand an issue involving an IT professional refusing to turn over passwords when he is reassigned. Lay people *can* understand these things, and it is the job of the prosecution & defense (along with the expert witnesses they call) to make the facts clear.
And that point would be wrong. Now if you said people who insert into conversations that they are atheist are treated just like most people who insist on inserting their religion into those conversations when the conversation has nothing pertaining to religion or the lack of one, I cold agree.
But if your going to a church and claiming you are atheist then complaining that they treated you poorly, guess what, it's your own fault not theirs. If you are injecting that you are atheist without anyone asking and they treat you poorly after, guess what, it's your own fault, not theirs. Why? Because spirituality or the lack thereof is something personal. People do not like it injected into the conversation when it doesn't belong there. And yes, people who claim to be christian or Jewish or Muslim all get treated poorly when they walk up to someone of a different faith and proclaim their religious views. It's your own damn fault because of your own actions, not your beliefs.
So if you are in a room talking with strangers about car, one of the quickest ways to become treated poorly will be to insert the fact that you are an Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Protestant, Roman catholic, New lifer' Jehovah's witness, or anything else. If you want to continue to be treated normally, then stick with talking about cars or whatever the discussion was. And yes, this phenomenon of everyone is out to get me for my beliefs is spouted by people of almost every religion out there. It's because they can't tell that it's their actions that offends people when you share an intament personal belief with with strangers unsolicited..