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Judge To Newspaper - Reveal Name of Commenter
First time accepted submitter Andy Prough writes "A Kansas judge has ordered a Topeka newspaper to release the name of a commenter on one of its stories about the trial of Anceo D. Stovall for the murder of Natalie Gibson. Using the name 'BePrepared,' the commenter posted the following in response to a story about the ongoing trial on July 21 at 1:45pm: 'Trust me that's all they got in their little world, as you know, I have been there. Remember the pukes names they will do it for ever.' The problem? The court is convinced that 'BePrepared' was a juror, and was not supposed to be accessing news about the trial before it ended on July 24th. The court wants BePrepared's name, address and IP address. The jury was ultimately unable to find Stovall guilty of 10 of the 11 charges against him — including murder. Both defense and prosecution lawyers appear to want a new trial, and if it turns out that BePrepared was a juror, they are more likely to get their wish."
News why?
- Juror suspected of perjury.
- Court issues order to place that published posts which have a reasonable chance of providing evidence of said perjury, to provide the bare minimum of information to identify the poster.
- If it's not him, end of case.
- If it is him, file for mistrial, pursue conviction against him.
Why is this news? This is bog-standard legal procedure for any medium whatsoever (e.g. newspaper letters page would be the same, or CCTV of him in a pub meeting the defendant, or whatever).
Because "The Internet" means you should be anonymous, untraceable and able to commit criminal acts? Is that the logic?
I don't really have a problem if they're investigating whether a juror made the posting.
Assuming that, if the poster was not a juror, they will retain their anonymity.
The "release the name" isn't "print it in the newspaper", it's released to the court, which won't release it further... will it?
I'll assume and hope that the paper does not have the person's real name. This can only lead to fishing expeditions on other issues where the authorities will demand that people identify themselves. These kinds of demands must be resisted, or there will be to pay down the line.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What precedent? The newspaper is under no obligation to hand over whatever information that it has without a court order, including a simple "Yes/No" answer to an unofficial query from the judge about whether the poster was a member of the jury as a first step in a formal request for the information. A court order makes it official, legally binding, and covers the newspaper from any issues about revealling sources and such like. As long as the information goes straight into the judge's shredder should it turn out that the poster wasn't a member of the jury, then no harm and most definitely no foul.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
...so the alternative to giving a public speaker's name to the government is that a juror's name is released to a newspaper?
Now that's a dangerous precedent...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If you remove the Internet from the equation, how does it look?
A credit card was used at Location X and the card is suspected to belong to John Doe, who is not lawfully allowed at Location X. The police request enough information to determine whether the card belonged to John Doe or not. If the card does not belong to John Doe, the matter will be dropped. If it does belong to John Doe, then the matter will be pursued as a violation of John Doe being at Location X unlawfully, but the credit charge itself is perfectly legal and will not be held against John Doe other than as evidence of being at Location X.
How does anybody read that gibberish and come to the conclusion that the commentor is a juror? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense?
They don't need the name of the person, they need to know that it is NOT ______________. You shouldn't reveal all the cards, but rather reveal that it is not 4 aces.
Both defense and prosecution lawyers appear to want a new trial,
Can someone clued into the legal situation here fill me in on why they can't just get a new trial if both sides wants one?
It doesn't say they found him innocent, it says they were unable to find him guilty. In other words, a hung jury.
Did anyone notice Jonathan B. Phelps is the attorney in the case? Phelps Chartered had a web site (http://www.phelpschartered.com/) but it is offline at the moment.
What should happen at the most is that the name is given to the newspaper, and they verify if its them or not.
Newspapers aren't empowered to conduct official investigations. They are empowered to conduct unofficial ones in the public interest.
So this guy supposedly accessed a story WHILE the jury was in deliberations? One would think, that were this person on the Jury, one of the other jurors would have witnessed this?
Nothing about the comment even hints that a juror or someone with knwoledge of the specific case said it. This seems like grasping at straws to me.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I've only been a juror on one trial, but my impression was that the judge was accepting rather lame excuses from people who wanted to get out. Perhaps he felt the same way you do.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
So is this an issue of a juror posting a comment to the local paper? Or a juror reading the news in that (or other) papers concerning this trial? because if its the latter, there could be numerous jurors who read it but didn't submit a comment.
If our system depends on jurors keeping themselves ignorant of current events rather than being able to ignore information from outside sources, we're screwed.
Have gnu, will travel.
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I notice that the courts phrasing is "should prohibit" rather than "does prohibit" or "prohibits". This could simply be poorly worded, but considering that the court's main business is to parse the specific wording of laws, I would be a little worried that the court's text merely implies that it would be nice if there were to be a law passed that would prohibit such a thing and that passing such a law should happen.
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If such a law already existed, I'd bet the phrasing would be "State law prohibits" with a reference to or citation of the relevant law. Maybe a lawyer (IANAL) could jump in and comment. Double-bonus points if it's a Kansas lawyer who might even really know. :)
who cares about their rights?
What rights? The last two governments have taken the rights out of the Bill of Rights, leaving us with just the bill.
If there are enough jurors who don't mind serving, the judge will dismiss those who express the desire to not serve. But if everyone wanted off the case (say it was promising to be a lengthy civil suit that would have kept you all in the courtroom for two months,) he probably wouldn't have let them go so easily.
John
Agreed. Either way the information flows, doesn't it really amount to electronic surveillance of your online communications by the courts? Seems like a dangerous step in the direction of "Big Brother".
The problem for many would be compensation. I'd be happy to be on a jury if I could be financially compensated in a way that adequately covers my absence from work. A few days I could handle, but if I somehow got stuck on a "big case" that ran for months it would be a significant financial hardship.
Doing your civic duty is a good thing, but doing so and not being able to pay your bills isn't so much. It's not good for those on the jury, and it's not good for the accused as a bunch of disgruntled and financially hurting jurors are more likely to make snap decisions based on their desire to get out of the box.
Do the police have probable cause to suspect a crime was committed? Do they have the legal right to access that electronic communication? Whole lot of questions here.
Newspapers in the U.S. aren't really "empowered". They are given shielding from certain types of liability, such as that you must prove actual malice when accusing them of defamation of character.
What about that particular post made the court "convinced" it was a juror?
I agree - really hard to see it.
That's a much better idea. Although the other question remains - does the court really have the right to the information, just because it suspects he might have violated the court's instructions not to peek at the news? Its been known since the beginning of the juror system that many jurors a). read news about the trial as it progresses; b). watch tv news about the trial; c). talk to their wives/neighbors/co-workers about the trial; d). talk among themselves about the trial prior to being sent for deliberation. How is this situation any different from the millions of previous times a juror violated the judge's instructions?
And, does sequestration even work? We know that jurors sometimes violate the instructions.
Yup - its a big problem. Someone could tie the courts up in knots just by faking posts on articles mid-trial that appeared to be from a juror.
What should happen at the most is that the name is given to the newspaper, and they verify if its them or not.
Newspapers aren't empowered to conduct official investigations.
Neither are judges or courts.
Judge is a piece of shit violating people's rights because they failed to convict on 10 out of 11 charges.
Fishing expedition to "justify" putting the guy in double jeopardy. Fucking horseshit.
No - from my reading, it was a hung jury on the 10 charges - prosecution has a right to re-try those charges. It's only double jeopardy if the prosecution attempts to re-try a charge that was already decided by a jury.
Judges are empowered to issue subpoena for information. And the judge didn't fail to convict on anything.
Understood and agreed. My point above is that once an investigation becomes official they don't get to do the investigating.
. . . and lack of punctuation.
I agree with you in principal. The only issue I have is that this is a newspaper. Change the Analogy to: A photo of the judge's senator bother going into a hotel room with a prostitute is suspected of having been taken by John Doe at location X. John Doe is not lawfully allowed to be in location X. John Doe delivers that photo to a newspaper who publishes it in their printed paper.
From TFA:
Shawnee County District Judge Steven Ebberts last week denied a request by The Topeka Capital-Journal to quash a subpoena seeking the name, address and Internet Protocol address of a poster who goes by the pseudonym “BePrepared.”
Stovall’s attorney, Jonathan Phelps ... filed a motion seeking a new trial, saying the online posting constitutes juror misconduct and hindered Stovall’s right to a fair trial.
Judge Ebberts said the poster’s identity was relevant to an investigation of criminal misconduct during the trial. He wrote that the prosecutor’s office has claimed that without the information, “a miscarriage of justice” would result.
So, as I understand it, this is what's happened: Stovall was found guilty of one charge, but the comment was posted, and Stovall's attorney thinks it was a juror. The prosecutor thinks that if it is a juror, that's a crime in itself (violating due process), so they both want to know who BePrepared is, and the prosecutor (effectively being an attorney for the court itself) got a subpoena for the poster's name. The newspaper asked to quash the subpoena, but the judge refused, so they now have to give up the name of the poster. If it is a juror, the guy gets a new trial, as his lawyer wants. If not, the trial proceeds as normal with the one charge standing.
If there's any fishing expedition, it comes from Stovall's own attorney. Double jeopardy doesn't apply: the accused doesn't get a free pass because somebody screwed with their due process. They just go through due process again.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
No - from my reading, it was a hung jury on the 10 charges - prosecution has a right to re-try those charges. It's only double jeopardy if the prosecution attempts to re-try a charge that was already decided by a jury.
It doesn't say whether the 10 counts were undecided or not.
For information related to a court case, sure. This information is not at all related to the case, and is in fact an investigation looking for a crime so they can retry on the basis of a mistrial. I didn't say the judge failed to convict, the "they" obviously meant the prosecution.
Stovall's attorney wants a new trial for the single charge he was convicted of, obviously.
The prosecution wants a new trial for the 10/11 they failed at.
No, there aren't. This article is about the judge who *already* answered those questions.
Agreed - but I was responding to his hypothetical about electronically tracking a suspected credit card thief.
Because of course it's just beyond belief that someone in the justice system could actually want justice to be properly served... Right.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
There was no suspected credit card theft in his example. There was a suspected presence at a prohibited location. A perfectly legitimate credit card transaction conducted there was simply possible evidence of that presence. The requested to confirm that that was really the suspect's card was not because the card was suspected of being stolen, but to see if that was really the suspect at that location.
Of course, the suspect could defend himself against that allegation by claiming his card had been stolen and thus even though it was used there, he wasn't there. But that wasn't mentioned in the example.
In the analogy:
Charge = post
Location = website
Credit card = username
A person has been prohibited from being at a {location / website}. There is an otherwise perfectly legal {charge / post} made at that {location / website}, apparently from said person's {credit card / username}. The court wants to confirm that that was really that person's {credit card / username}, not because there's anything wrong with the {charge / post}, but because if it was then that's evidence that the person was at the {location / website} he wasn't supposed to be at. Of course said person could counter-claim that someone else was using their {credit card / username}, but that's not the issue in dispute.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
This is information related to a court case. There is a question whether a juror engaged in misconduct during the course of the trial.