Should Smartphones Be Allowed In Court?

coondoggie writes "Federal courts have been debating how much freedom users of smartphones and portable wireless devices in general should have in a federal courthouse. Some say they should be banned outright, while others say they should be allowed, but their use curtailed (PDF). Unregulated use of smartphones has resulted in mistrials, exclusion of jurors and fines in some case."

Comments

Well...

[MrEricSir]

50% of the time jurors are just forced to sit there while nothing is happening. They're not allowed to do much, so why not let them play Angry Birds?

Re:Well...

[ls671]

Don't forget jurors are sometimes sequestered with no access to any type of news so they are not "contaminated" by mass media or other type of news. At least in those cases, smart phones would be a big no-no.

They are sometimes allowed to get newspapers although where the articles regarding the trial they are involved in are removed when they are sequestered for weeks.

Re:Well...

[pclminion]

Perhaps they should spend that idle time pondering the importance of the decisions they will be making and the impacts those decisions will have on the various parties involved -- and taking stock of their own capacity to be objective, their own internalized biases, and personal foibles, in order to offer a fairer verdict at the end of the process. Instead of playing Angry Birds. Just a thought.

Re:Well...

[MrEricSir]

Because Angry Birds requires so much concentration?

Re:Well...

[rolfwind]

Yeah, but after 5 minutes thought, then what?

It's not really a surprise no one wants to be a juror, you're treated almost like the prisoner in some case, cut off from the world and with shitty pay to boot.

Re:Well...

[ls671]

I totally agree, the average quality of jurors is very mild. This is why the courts should be allowed to pick jurors from a pool they choose.

This is how it currently works technically. But in real life, all you have to say to be disqualified from a juror role is that you can't stand any type of criminality and that any criminal should be sentenced to death even if he is only suspected of a crime.

Getting paid more and getting more advantages might indeed refrain yourself from doing just that but it is a hard to tackle problem: How much should we pay a juror earning 250,000$ a year compared to one earning 50,000$ a year, especially if the person works as a freelancer ?

 

Re:Well...

[PCM2]

But in real life, all you have to say to be disqualified from a juror role is that you can't stand any type of criminality and that any criminal should be sentenced to death even if he is only suspected of a crime.

When's the last time you sat on a jury? I once saw a guy try to pull the old "I hate all niggers" routine, which is only slightly more obvious than what you suggest. The judge asked him whether he wouldn't be able to put aside his preconceptions and evaluate the case fairly. He said no he would not. The judge reminded him of his obligations as a juror. He persisted with his tactic -- which, no doubt, the judge had seen a hundred times before. The judge ended up holding him in contempt of court.

Re:Well...

[PCM2]

Kind of sad, though. I mean, are you absolutely certain that you will never stand trial before a jury, for anything? And if not, who would you like to be on that jury?

Me, I honestly don't have a problem with sitting on a jury. Some people treat it like they're being drafted to Vietnam. It's not like that at all (and it happens to me every single year, so I know). It's a pain in the ass, but it's actually pretty interesting, and in the end it's seldom much of a drain on your time. Especially a criminal jury; criminal trials are usually short, and often last just a day or two. You're much more likely to get called for a strong-arm robbery or a drug sales charge than for a murder. (Civil trials, on the other hand, are a totally different matter, and can last months -- I dread the times I'm called for those.)

So to my previous point, fuck's sake -- these people who are on trial for these criminal charges, they're people just like you. A lot of them are scumbag criminals, but some of them didn't even do what they're charged with. This is the essence of our jury system: It's not some elitist racket designed to let people like you dodge being on jury duty. Rather, it's designed so that people like you will sit on juries so that people like you don't go to prison for breaking laws they never broke.

banned outright

[nurb432]

No different then cameras or other recording devices in most courts.

Leave them at the door.

Re:banned outright

[fishbowl]

I had a court confiscate the book I was reading (it was Dostoevsky, The Idiot, but I actually don't think it was based on the content.)
I didn't mind being chosen for jury duty, provided I would be allowed to read during the incredibly long, boring downtime you get where there is nothing to do but wait. But once they took away my book, it set me on a path of trying to get out of serving. (This was easy, they asked me what magazines I read, and without even lying I have a pretty subversive list :-)

All cell phones have been banned

[Anonymous Coward]

in my local courthouse for several years, due to fear of courtroom observers using texting to coordinate witness testimony. That decision was made when the clerk of court's teenage son showed him that he could text with his phone in his shirt pocket.

Re:All cell phones have been banned

[mmj638]

Strangely enough, that skill seems to be universal to all people born later than about 1990, and yet it's something I've never known someone my age (30) to be able to do. It'd be certainly impossible on my touch phone.

A school teacher friend fills me in on these things. The other thing that sets such young people apart is sending 50-200 texts a day, whereas I'd be lucky if I sent 5. Who knew - pre-paid plans aimed at teens with less than 1 cent per text are readily available. And they have their phones on silent or vibrate.

Back in my day - I don't remember what we did. Just talk in class I guess. Occasionally passed a paper note. But we didn't have that constant connectedness with classmates that they can get with text messages.

Wrong

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It's the behavior that's wrong, not the technology. You can ban smartphones, but then you'll be banning tablets, then watches, then glasses with microdisplays, etc.

Treat the problem, not the symptom.

Re:Wrong

[SilverHatHacker]

Problem with that is that our culture is gaining a sense of entitlement thanks to the "always connected" fad. How do you convince people that it's wrong to use tech in courtrooms when everything else is telling them that it's their God-given right to have 24-7 access to Twitter? I too believe in treating the disease before the symptoms, but this goes much deeper than - as one poster put it - jurors playing Angry Birds. People first need to realise that just because they can do something doesn't always mean they should, which may sound like common sense but seems to be lacking in the general population.

Re:Wrong

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

How do you convince people that it's wrong to use tech in courtrooms when everything else is telling them that it's their God-given right to have 24-7 access to Twitter?

Welp, we did teach people not to smoke inside.

Re:Wrong

[Belial6]

Funny, I have seen the opposite. A culture of people who feel they must stop other people from having 24-7 access. I would say that a courtroom, like a movie theater is an inappropriate place to have phones ringing, but look at all the other places that we see things like signs say "Turn off cell phone." Personally, I find it highly offensive when I am in a doctors waiting room, with their phones ringing off the hook, and the doctor 20 minutes late to their appointment, and there is a sign on the wall telling you to turn off your phone.

What's the status quo?

[guspasho]

Isn't the status quo currently that judges decide whether to allow them or not? Why not let them continue to do so? If you're going to ban them outright, then why? And what possible justification is there for not banning notepads and pens and other recording devices?

Re:What's the status quo?

[Ruke]

A pen and notepad is not a broadcasting device. And use of many other recording devices is restricted: you will often only see hand-drawn illustrations of court cases because cameras were not allowed in the courthouse.

Re:What's the status quo?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

When I served on a jury the bailiff collected our cell phones before the trial and gave them back afterward. They also provided all writing materials and collected them when the trial was over. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Not clear

[Locke2005]

If your intention is to deliberately keep jurors ignorant, then yes, jurors should be banned from using smart phones while sequestered. If your intention is to keep spectators from leaking information about the trial, that ship sailed a long time ago... the technology to undetectably get pictures and audio recordings of testimony out of the courtroom has been around for a while.

I have been following this issue for years.

[www.sorehands.com]

I have a friend who practiced in the U.S. District Court in Mass. Early on he had a Windows Mobile phone, which of course he kept his schedule. When the Court was banning cell phones, he would have to get permission from the court so that he could check his schedule on his phone, as did opposing counsel.

In Los Angeles, they would ban cell phones with cameras for a while, for non-attorneys. This was stopped between 2008 and 2010. I suspect that since most people have their schedules on their phones, it would make it very hard to schedule any proceedings if phones were banned.

As far as jurors, there must be some restriction on information access/communications during the period that they are on a jury (as opposed to being in the pool). Not only so that they are untainted, but also so they are undistracted.

Camera Phones don't take pictures, people take pictures.

Two sorts of jurors we don't want

[cdrguru]

1. The ones that just don't care. It is beyond their ability to be interested and sometimes need to be woken up during the trial. Whatever way the wind is blowing that will be their decision - going with the flow, majority rules and must be right.
2. The sort that is sure there is something "wrong" in the trial and want to figure it out for themselves. For example, during a medical malpractice proceeding they are sure the anesthesiologist must be mistaken from their vast experience due to Aunt Sally having a terrible time with her last operation. So they want to spend a lot of time with WebMD and various blogs about people with anesthesia problems hoping to be able to prove their point.

Of course, what we get in the US is a predominance of both of these sorts of jurors. They watch a lot of TV and are sure they have stumbled into something interesting. Or they are there because there isn't anything else interesting to do at the rest home. Worse, they didn't want to serve, couldn't think of a way out of it and now are there and are very, very hostile about it - he must be guilty or he wouldn't have been arrested, can we go now?

The smartphone is of use to both these sorts of people and in neither case is it useful or helpful but is actually very, very damaging to the system. And if you happen to be the guy on trial with 10 of these sorts of jurors you are going to be very angry at the guilty verdict.

Re:Alternative approach

[pclminion]

So, you think it's okay for jurors to, on their own, access information pertinent to the case, without giving the defense or prosecution an opportunity to examine that information and discuss it in court? You think people should be convicted based on secret information their attorneys didn't even know about? Nice...

Re:Ban the thing

[msobkow]

By all means ban smartphones from the court. The cameras most of them have are already illegal in many jurisdictions, and there is nothing you can do with a smartphone that you should be doing in court.

For that matter, I'd say ban cellphones period. The court is not a place to be text messaging, and you sure as hell aren't going to be taking calls anyhow.

One example of Judicial Tech-stupidity and

[meerling]

There is a case where a judge declared a mistrial because one of the lawyers used a big $2 word that few average people would understand. They wouldn't define/explain the word to the jury, nor even let them look in a dictionary, so one of them used his phone to check an online dictionary. That's the whole reason the judge declared a mistrial.
I think that judge in particular needs to get whacked with a clue-by-four.

In my opinion there does need to be some standard rules regarding the use of these devices, but completely banning them is not a good choice. Even so, a single stupid or technophobic judge will screw over anything no matter what.

Re:Alternative approach

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you saying they should throw out all rules for evidence such as speculation, hearsay, conjecture, etc.?

Jurors are charged with making a ruling based on the evidence presented not the "evidence" they can Google.

Lawyers Only?

[GrifterCC]

I practice before the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia at Alexandria, and they do not allow anyone, including lawyers, to bring their smartphones in. It's routine to have to look at your calendar on the fly when the judge wants to schedule something, so you have to have it with you. The EDVA policy is the main reason I still maintain a paper calendar parallel to my computer calendar.

I understand and buy into the rationale behind not letting jurors bring them in, but the state courts in the area almost universally allow lawyers to bring their smartphones in, and it's such a bonus.

Re:Lawyers Only?

[demonlapin]

As others have pointed out in the past, though I can't remember where, the entire jury experience is miserable because jurors are the only part of the system that has no control or way to influence future behavior - judges have immense control over lawyers appearing before them, of course, but the lawyers also have some feedback into the system, while no jury can "punish" a judge or lawyer for misleading them.

Here's an idea.

[dragonhunter21]

Tell you what- when I'm allowed to bring my smartphone in for my SAT, then we'll talk about letting the jury have them.

Re:Here's an idea.

[Ritchie70]

In the case of the SAT, the point is to find out what you know and how you think.

In the point of the jury, the point (in theory at least) is to arrive at a fair and correct verdict as to the matter before the court.

At that point it becomes less clear to me whether the jury should have access to unfettered information or not.

Re:Here's an idea.

[bws111]

How can it be less clear? The whole point of a trial is that the jury does NOT have unfettered access to information.

First and most obvious are the rules of evidence - if you are on trial, do you want the jury to have access to the results of an illegal search that just happened to be 'leaked'? Do you want the jury to search the papers and find that you have been charged with the same type of offense before?

Next is the constitutional right to confront your accuser. A juror looking up information on his own is not giving the defense a chance to rebut the information. Also, the defense (or even the prosecution) would not have prior knowledge of what things a juror was looking up, so they would not have time to prepare a proper rebuttal (get expert witnesses, etc).

Giving jurors access to information outside the courtroom is just an awful idea.

Let them eat cake!

[kuzb]

Why not allow them to have their mobile devices, but jam cell frequencies so they can't be 'contaminated' ?

Re:My smartphone...

[artor3]

Might I advise against getting a Windows Phone?

Re:Alternative approach

[DoofusOfDeath]

You don't think media can sway people's opinion?

The whole system of jury trial is based upon the assumption that 12 jurors collectively make a pretty wise choice. By having a judge and attorneys filter the arguments and evidence to which a jury is exposed, they're substituting their own wisdom for that of jurors. Especially when judges refuse to allow defense lawyers to suggest juries consider jury-nullification of a law to be a legitimate exercise of their powers.

That being said, I would suggest that jurors also be given an opportunity to present questions to the lawyers. For example, "I heard on Fox News that the defendant was seen walking around with a gun after the murder. You never mentioned a gun. Was Fox News incorrect on this point?"

I'd say in general, I don't like elitist tyranny that judges can impose over juries, and I'm looking for ways to undo it.

Re:Alternative approach

[pclminion]

Whether the judge controls the information is beside the point. The point is, the defense needs the opportunity to address the information in court. I don't understand how replacing one potential problem with a much, much bigger problem helps anything.

How it really works:

[germansausage]

I don't want to spoil the usual misinformed ranting with a bunch of facts, but I just finished jury duty, and this is how it works: The sherrif collects everybody's cell phones and locks them up in a little foam lined briefcase at the start of court every day. You get them back for lunch break and when you leave for the day. Once we were sequestered there were no phones, period, till we reached a verdict.

My last time on jury duty

[JazzXP]

I think the system we have here in Australia works well (no idea how it works in the US). Phones allowed in the courthouse, but not in the courtroom. When I was on a jury a couple of years ago, we had to put our phones in a box before going on to the jury. Once we left the courtroom, we could pick up our phones and use them like normal. Not even from the smartphone side, but a jury shouldn't have any distractions like that while listening to a trial.

Re:Nooooooooo!

[demonlapin]

Let's just hope you didn't make any of the 48 Hours Mystery mistakes, like Googling "how to kill my wife without getting caught" or "how to knock someone in the head" (yes, really) or "how to get away with murder" or even "how to get rid of a body". While signed in to your Google account. And then leaving it in your computer's history.

Re:Alternative approach

[PCM2]

We need to realize that it's not practical to keep people in the dark and start designing trials to counter this.

Either that, or we need to keep doing what we do now: Expect jurors to act like adults, respect the rule of law, and obey the instructions of the judge. And if they don't, they're dismissed, fined, and the defendant is potentially entitled to a new trial because his defense was poisoned by a misbehaving juror.

So once again, design a new form of trial where jurors' biases and ignorance (which are, of course, society's biases and ignorance) get addressed.

In all the times I've been called as a juror (and it happens every year without fail), I've found the current legal system is actually pretty good at this. Do you have experience otherwise?

Re:Alternative approach

[bws111]

OK, so the police violate your rights and search your house illegally. They find evidence that you committed a crime (maybe even one they hadn't previously known about). This gets used at your trial, and you are convicted and sitting in jail. Meanwhile, the cop who violated your rights is on trial, and his jury uses your wonderful jury nullification idea and decides that since you were such a scumbag your rights didn't count anyway, and they let him off.

There is no other way to look at your ideas than you are willingly giving up your rights and getting nothing at all in return (except for not having that 'elitist judge' protect them). No thanks.

You fu$$ing what?

[Tigger's Pet]

You obviously haven't been a prisoner then - have you? I have! I spent 2 weeks going through a trial where there was not a single piece of evidence offered against me, other than one person's word again mine. At the end of that two weeks I was found guilty of a crime I didn't commit and got to spend the next 6 years, 8 months in prison because our legal system sucks.
Do you want to know how much time I spent during that period thinking about how sorry I felt for the jurors and how much they must have suffered like I was during their 2 weeks of jury service?
Do you? Really? Precisely zero seconds!!

How the hell did the parent comment get modded up, let alone as "insightful"? Unless it was modded as "Insightful into the mental state of the poster"?