Internet-Caused Mistrials Are On the Rise 414
The NYTimes is running a tip-of-the-iceberg story about how the age of Google is resulting in more mistrials as the traditional rules of evidence, honed over many centuries, collide with the always-on Internet. Especially when jurors carry the always-on Internet in their pockets. (We discussed one such case recently.) "The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges. ... Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system's complex rules of evidence."
judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, the average juror may not be that sharp and may not realize it until told.
I think that the bigger issue is that the average juror may just not give a shit about the judges instructions.
Frankly, if I want to know the details about a case, why would I trust the media (who are digging deep and trying to sensationalize trivial details in order to keep me from changing the channel) any more or less than the lawyers (who are digging deep and trying to distort facts to try to "persuade" me to vote in their favor)? When you're dealing with bias everywhere, you're tempted to just collect as much data as you can - Even if you're instructed not to and know that it's "wrong".
Re:judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, if I want to know the details about a case, why would I trust the media (who are digging deep and trying to sensationalize trivial details in order to keep me from changing the channel) any more or less than the lawyers (who are digging deep and trying to distort facts to try to "persuade" me to vote in their favor)?
Because the lawyers are on opposing sides, and so the balance of the evidence they bring forward should produce a complete picture (unless they're colluding or something). There's simply no way you, with a blackberry, are going to be able to find evidence relevant to the case that the two parties won't already have brought forward (unless they, or the investigators in the case, did a truly terrible job).
The *only* evidence you'll gain access to is that which was ruled inadmissable by the judge. But that evidence is inadmissable for a reason. Who are you to decide whether or not you'll abide by that ruling? I mean, jebus, those rulings are made for a reason!
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Who are you to decide whether or not you'll abide by that ruling?
Jury nullification [wikipedia.org] applies, I would think. The final check and balance is not the judge, it is the people.
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I would like to be able to hear all of the facts.
And my point, which you apparently completely missed, is that the system of justice we have results in the relevant facts being brought to light because each side is interested in providing evidence to support their case. What you're claiming is that there may be evidence brought up by neither the prosecution nor the defense that will affect the trial. But if that's the case, then either the prosecution or the defense has done a very terrible job, or, and t
Re:judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally despise the idea of "inadmissible" evidence. Optimally, the court is looking for the truth but an environment where critical information can be thrown out because of a technicality it is inherently flawed in finding said truth. The information that should be inadmissible is false information.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, we are going to ignore the fact that the accused was found at the scene of the crime with the bloody knife in his hand standing over the victim on the grounds that the arresting officer hit him with his night stick too many times...."
Right, because officers beating someone too many times would never take a homeless man, or other so-called "undesirable" and frame them?
Hearsay is false information because its authenticity can't be proven. "Bob told Sue who told Marge who told Sam who mentioned to my best friend's aunt's sister that he heard that the defendant did it." WTF? People are generally trusting, and juries would get tainted by this. It's thrown out for good reason, though the media is more than happy to print anything sensational.
Information gained by torture, or any other undue pressure, is also thrown out (though why evidence gained from 16-hour "interrogations" is admissable, I don't know). Entrapment is thrown out. Time and again, information that is thrown out is false, even if it happens to be truth. That's what inadmissible means. Stuff that naive people would believe, when the logic of the situation has failed.
Yes, it could be that the police illegally raided a house and found some sicko with child porn lining the walls. But that invasion of privacy is "false". They could have just as easily raided any other random house and broken the door of someone who was perfectly innocent, and thus, we, as a society, have determined that it is better for one person to go free than for everyone to live in fear of the police knocking down their doors.
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That just embrazens the police to try again and again. Who is going to punish the officers when they don't find anything? The police? I know I don't trust the police that much. They've proven that they stick together, through their actions and through the actions of their unions.
The only people who can punish the police are the judges. Even they seem to have their hands in the cookie jar far too often (as many of the judges come from prosecutorial backgrounds, which means they probably have a too-close
Re:judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:5, Insightful)
The rules are in place to prevent you from making your decision based on that information. You know the whole rule about illegal search and seizure? If you make your decision based on knowledge obtained in an illegal search and publicized in the media, when it was clearly illegal and prohibited at trial, you remove one of the constraints preventing us from descending into a police state. If the police can get convictions through arbitrary, illegal searches, they will. Even if you are innocent, arbitrary illegal searches could tie you to any number of crimes through circumstantial evidence. The rules don't just protect the defendant, they protect our whole system of justice from going out of control.
Does your sense of curiosity outweigh that?
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But that's just it, you're not dealing with bias "everywhere". You're dealing with two very specific biases, the prosecution and the defence. And (in theory) they're supposed to cancel out, and you can work out the "truth" by seeing both sides of the story. You're absolutely not dealing with bias in the media, because you're not bloody well consulting with the media during the trial. If you're listening to the media at all, you are, as they say, Doing It Wrong. And your proposed solution to this Doing It Wr
Re:judges oinstructions have always banned this (Score:4, Insightful)
In this way a jury member that is looking there for "all the information at their disposal" could be significantly prejudiced without the other side being aware.
Surely this is one of the reasons why such rules exist?
Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Every juror is searched every day for any electronic device. No cell phones, no Blackberrys, no nothing. If the rules of court allow it, they get pencil and paper. Otherwise, they sit and listen.
This does not preclude someone from going home and looking up information, but it does solve the issue of doing things in court you shouldn't be doing while on a jury.
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Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Last time I reported for Jury Duty they wouldn't even let me bring an iPod into the building, let alone anything with Internet access...I guess it's a state-by-state thing.
You're right, it's definitely worse here in Texas. Last time I was on a jury, they wouldn't let me bring my gun into the courthouse.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was called up for jury duty last summer, I had to surrender my cell phone before going through the metal detector. I think other electronics were prohibited as well. Seems like this would be pretty simple to stop by a small rules change at the court house. Just ban cell phones and similar devices.
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...or go home and post information about the case and the jury deliberations to blogs, etc.
Short of sequestering all juries, there's not a lot you can do to pose a substantial barrier to that.
Exactly - I'm in a situation right now that reflects that pretty well (my first time serving as a juror).
Actually the judge told us explicitly that if it was made public that Col. Mustard had even been seen with a candlestick, the whole case could be unraveled.
Oh, wait...
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you've never been on a jury. Do you have any idea how dull jury duty is? I was on a month long trial last summer and it was tedious and awkward. We all had very little in common and the one thing we did have in common was off limits for conversation.
It's difficult enough to get people to ditch work for a tiny stipend, imagine knowing that over the period of the trial that one's going to be bored out of ones mind during the many points where the jury isn't needed.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Books come to mind. Besides, there's nothing that says you can't read online stories or news events. Just not what case you're deciding on. Are you saying you and others lack self-control so that for one month you can't not look at a news article related to your case? (ignore the double negative)
Of course, as the original article relates, the obvious answer is yes. Apparently people lack self-control, and common sense, to not read or listen to any news story about the case they are deciding on or even cases similar to the one you are deciding.
If the fact that the supposedly most intelligent creatures on the planet can't control themselves for one month to not look at something they aren't supposed to look at, then not having access to electronic devices is the price one must pay.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Interesting)
That is the problem with the system, which explicitly fills large amounts of time with testimony of little or no real value to the case.
Most trials aren't really about "truth" as much as about being "fair". And what is "fair" is totally stacked against the state, and in favor of the defendant.
And people like OJ are free because Furman said the N word (slight over simplification). That's the system. Everyone knows OJ did it.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Mark Furman perjured himself on the stand and the defense showed that he had violated the law as a matter of course. Obviously evidence he collected needed to be questioned. The prosecution should have double and triple checked the evidence, and had more of it. A murder trial should not come down to a single glove.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
'And what is "fair" is totally stacked against the state, and in favor of the defendant.'
Yes; the State only gets to make the laws, the rules of evidence, appoint the judges (at least at the higher levels), have a very large group of investigators working specifically for them, and unlimited time and budget, while the accused has a whole lawyer and a gumshoe.
Totally unfair!
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States constitution is specifically designed to give the defendant an edge in court. The founding fathers believed that it's better to let a guilty man run free than let an innocent man be found guilty.
Hence all the principles about innocent until proven guilty etc. This is a very important cornerstone of our country and sadly it seems a lot of people don't understand this. A lot of people would rather lock up almost anyone who gets put on trial just to make sure that all the guilty are in fact found guilty. The problem of course is that you end up locking up more innocent people than you do guilty people.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
And that should be trivially obvious too - it doesn't take a complicated debate on ethics. When a guilty man is found not guilty, a guilty man goes free. When an innocent man is found guilty, an innocent man is punished and a guilty man goes free.
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Everyone? I've never been to the city he lived in, nor was I in the courtroom. I'd rather have some guilty people go free than have an innocent person be put in prison.
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And people like OJ are free because Furman said the N word (slight over simplification). That's the system. Everyone knows OJ did it.
I'd call that "wrong" rather than a "slight oversimplification". The prosecution ran a poor case throughout. They knew that they were dealing with a top notch defense team yet they were still (as I dimly recall) making bad mistakes throughout the trial.
You also ignore that the key piece of evidence, the glove didn't fit OJ's hands when he tried it on in court. That probably was due to improper care of the glove, but it was enough to secure an acquittal. Remember that the jury didn't spend very long to decid
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
you're not allowed to do anything
Of course you are...they just don't want you to know that you are. (Hint: google "jury nullification" some time.) (Hint #2: those two words are a really fast way to get thrown off a jury.)
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Good point.
I've heard it put forth...that when you are on a jury, you are one of the most powerful people in the United States. You could potentially even have power greater than, or over that of the President. You *can* vote how you feel....and it carries a great deal of weight!!
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I take it you've never been on a jury. Do you have any idea how dull jury duty is? I was on a month long trial last summer and it was tedious and awkward. We all had very little in common and the one thing we did have in common was off limits for conversation.
The one jury I was on had very little in common too... which made things *fascinating*. One guy was the head of new technologies for Citibank, and he and his wife were getting ready to adopt a baby from Korea. Another guy was the president of programming for Showtime. One of the women was a security guard, and had some *awesome* stories. Everyone was very different... and we'd go to lunch together, and talk about our lives and stuff that happened to us that had nothing to do with the case, and it was ve
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see your point, and I used to think JUST that same way.
But, as I've started over the past years, to really start to pay attention to what's happening in this country, with rights being nullified, changes to laws, expansion of laws, learing more of what I should have been taught in civics class.
I'm thinking the opposite now, in that...do YOU really consider your civic duty to be so worthless? Do you find that the principals for handing out justice (which you or someone you know could easily be on the wrong end of a trial) so worthless, that it isn't worth sacrificing a little of your time and money, to participate....and try to lend (hopefully) an intelligent ear and brain to try to help decide a fellow citizens fate?
Worst case scenario...YOU are falsely accused of something that would mark or ruin you for life, or deprive you of your liberty or very life.
Would you want someone like YOU on your jury....sitting there bored, not paying attention, pisseed about missing work, and just wanting to vote whatever way will get you out of there the fastest?
Something to ponder.....
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No, The want to make you do that because its part of the price of your freedom and the costs associated with the justice the system provides you the other 99.9% of your life.
Do I think the system is ideal no, should lots of things be changed yes, does that give you or I the right to shirk our civic dubty in the mean time of course not!
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That's all well and good in the courtroom but jurors go home at the end of the day. What are you going to do? Start sequestering every jury for every trial?
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Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is that they're not supposed to read the newspaper. For one thing, it's relatively easy not to read the newspaper. And for another, the newspaper doesn't contain even a minute fraction of the info that can be found on Google and Wikipedia in 10 seconds.
I can get home from that day's proceedings and have Wikipedia summaries of the law, tons of background info on the defendant and plaintiff, and every news article about the case ever printed in about 2.5 minutes using the internet. How are you going to research case law about employment contracts from home without the internet?
Go read the article. It covers all this.
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I can get home from that day's proceedings and have Wikipedia summaries of the law, tons of background info on the defendant and plaintiff, and every news article about the case ever printed in about 2.5 minutes using the internet.
I think you're overestimating the notoriety of the average case. Sure, if you're a juror for OJ Simpson or Michael Jackson, you can read every tiny little detail on Wikipedia. But if you're sitting on the jury for $JUNKIE[357], you probably won't find much except for the defendant's poorly-spelled and gramatically-dubious blog posts about his sexual exploits of questionable veracity. Maybe you'll find something on the arresting officer or DA in the local paper's archives if they've done something really
Wow! (Score:3, Funny)
I can get home from that day's proceedings and have Wikipedia summaries of the law, tons of background info on the defendant and plaintiff, and every news article about the case ever printed in about 2.5 minutes using the internet.
That's amazing! What kind of printer are you using?
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no requirements that they are literate or law abiding
Well I can't speak to the 'literate' requirement but it is generally understand that you need to be able to understand and communicate in the English language [nyjuror.gov]. You are dead wrong on the not needing to be law abiding too. A criminal record disqualifies you from jury service in every single state that I'm aware of.
do you really regard the people living anywhere in your county to be your "peers"?
I regard a randomly selected pool of 12 citizens more as my peers than I would some appointed judge or lawyer who may have a political agenda to advance. There are flaws in the jury system but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I myself have always wanted to do my civil duty and serve on a jury but know that I will never be able to because of some stupid stuff I did when I was young.
There's the foolish indiscretions of youth, and then there's felonies.
It's not the internet - it's morons (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet just makes it easier and faster for morons to display their stupid. In the old days, that same jackass who just had to twitter about the trial he's on would have been knocking back beer in a local bar and going on about the trial.
Re:It's not the internet - it's morons (Score:4, Insightful)
That was my thought as well. How do you blame technology for some jackass failing to take his civic responsibility seriously?
Re:It's not the internet - it's morons (Score:5, Funny)
How do you blame technology for some jackass failing to take his civic responsibility seriously?
With technology, he's a more efficient jackass.
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With technology, he's a more efficient jackass.
And easier to catch out, so perhaps this is an improvement.
Re:It's not the internet - it's morons (Score:5, Funny)
No, actually, what I meant was "their stupid."
I didn't want to say that the internet makes it easier for them "to display that they are stupid" which is the paraphrase for your "correction." I was using "their stupid" as a replacement for "their stupidity." I'm making use of a language in a slightly non-standard way, as a conscious decision.
Thanks, though.
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'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
If you want to communicate effectively with me, you need to use mutually intelligible language. If we both understand what is termed "non-standard English", then OK, it works, so long as we both understand it.
You can transpose letters here and there for sarcasm or humour, such as writing "thnaks" instead of "thanks" and I'll understand perfectly well.
If you start using the word "stupid" to stand for "stupidity", I'll probably not get the message you're trying to transmit.
If you go too far, I may even b
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Meh! First we had people verbing nouns. Now we have them nouning adjectives.
Just bar access. (Score:2)
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Check brain at the door? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing outside the courtroom should influence your decision in court.
Except that I come into the courtroom with 41 years of real-world experience & education which may or may not be approved by the judge, which may include direct knowledge of relevant laws, and which does include the knowledge that some judges will stifle relevant facts which may throw the case. As a juror, I am not merely a pawn in the game, I am (and intend to remain as relevant) an informed intelligent citizen who holds a 1/12th stake in soveriegnty over the case at hand. Not only are the facts presented up for evaluation by the jury, but the law itself and even the judge are subject to the jury (save only for plainly egregious verdicts). The defendant's freedom, and perhaps life, is at stake - as juror, I owe him more than meek submittal to a judge's biased orders and lawyer's incompetence or ulterior motives. To the officers of the court (attorneys included), the defendant is expendible; the jury should not concur.
Re:Check brain at the door? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can smell the hubris from my office.
What about things you "know" that are incorrect? Maybe you read something that was incorrect, and now you believe a falsehood to be true?
You, like many slashdotters (at times myself included), need to check your ego at the door.
Your attitude presents a danger to the fairness of the justice system, since as a juror, you would opt to supercede your personal opinion over the laws of the state and the legal administration of those laws in the courtroom. Please make sure you make your viewpoints known during jury selection so that counsel can (rightly) remove you from the jury pool for your refusal to comply with the legal system.
It's pretty common for geeks to think they know better than everyone else, and sometimes this may even e true... I just think when you're dealing with something as important as someone else's life/freedom, it's time to get off your high horse and play the role the justice system is designed to have you play.
If you think a judge is throwing a trial, then I'm sure the defense counsel/prosecutorial counsel feel the same way, and we have system DESIGNED to deal with this (appeals process). It is not your right, or your role, as a juror to decide to disrupt a legal proceeding by playing by your own rules.
Re:Check brain at the door? (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's not your decision as a juror to decide what laws apply to the case, or what evidence should be presented.
Actually, it is. Jury nullification [wikipedia.org] is a widely-recognized right whereby a jury can disregard not only instructions from the judge, but can also disregard the pertinent statute. This is, in fact, the entire point of the jury trial: not just that you may be judged by your peers, but that the law itself is judged by your peers. This is how the jury trial is a defense against tyranny.
The right of jury nullification has not been confirmed by the US Supreme Court, but it has been confirmed by many appellat
Citizen vs. juror? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not your decision as a juror to decide what laws apply to the case, or what evidence should be presented.
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse." ...except when on a jury? where suddenly I am to have no access to law or fact save only those hand-picked by those who may have ulterior motives? WTF?
"Anything you say [or do] can and will be used against you in a court of law."
I've studied enough law to know that when someone says "X is illegal", there is usually an unmentioned exception. I also know that the j
can't fight this, just control it (Score:2)
It's not going to be possible to fight this, instead the system should attempt at controlling this by allowing information to the jury but in a way, that is controlled.
So you want to see Google Maps? Well, that's great, but how do you know when the pictures where taken that you are looking at? You don't know, so understand that what is on the picture you are looking at can be totally different from what is the reality right now.
So the controlling feature would be to confirm the date and time, when this pa
A Jury Of Our Peers (Score:3, Insightful)
God help us all.
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I dunno. Jury of our peers > the alternatives.
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Remember John Allan Muhammad [wikipedia.org] and Lee Boyd Malvo? Choice quote from the Wikipedia:
...the primary reason for extraditing the two suspects from Maryland...to Virginia, was the differences in how the two states deal with the death penalty. While the death penalty is allowed in Maryland, it is only applied to persons who were adults at the time of their crimes, whereas Virginia had also allowed the death penalty for offenders who had been juveniles when their crimes were committed.
But yeah, if most of my peers watched American Idol and Rush Limbaugh I'd be shittin' bricks too.
Hmm... (Score:2)
With all the techniques and technologies developed for things like search engine optimization, various flavors of astroturfing, and the like, it would be pretty trivial to "seed" the internet with information calculated to specifically influence a jury one way or th
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imho, its not so weird that jurors can't ask questions (on trial juries at least; grand juries are different beasts altogether). in a criminal trial the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. if i as a juror had questions by the time deliberations came around, that's a huge red flag to me that the prosecutor didn't prove his case, and instilled reasonable doubt in me.
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It would be nice if there were a mechanism for jurors to request, and obtain, information they believe to be relevant("We are deciding a traffic case, could we get a street map and some pictures of the area in the jury room"); but hitting wikipedia on your phone isn't it.
Even that wouldn't fly. If there was information to be gained that could influence the jurors' judment, then the defense or prosecution should have presented them during the case. The idea of "admissible evidence" is extremely important, and prevents all kinds of abuses that would otherwise occur. So, the jury gets what the judge says they can have, and what the lawyers think is pertinent to their case. Jurors aren't investigators. It isn't their job to actively try to "find the facts", regardless of wheth
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While I don't think that the rules of evidence are beyond reproach(in particular, I've always found it weird that jurors can't ask questions)
In some states, jurors can ask questions, in writing, through the judge. Whether the questions are posed to witnesses is at the judge's discretion. (Naturally, in any state jurors may ask the judge questions to clarify their instructions, but that's not what you meant.)
So change the rules (Score:2)
Honestly, this is another "information wants to be free" issue. I can understand asking jurors to not Google about the specific people
Re:So change the rules (Score:4, Insightful)
If I was in a jury, I'd be very interested in the relevant case law.
The problem is that as a member of the jury it isn't your job to look at the case law. You are supposed to be a finder of fact, i.e: did the defendant commit this act. It's up to the judge to review the case law and if he does a piss-poor job of it then the defendant has grounds for appeal.
you can't block people off from information any longer.
Actually if they wanted to they could [ajs.org].
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Actually, the jury has a right to nullify even the law. If the law itself is unjust, the jury has a right to nullify even the law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification [wikipedia.org]
The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy. - John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States
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Last time I was on a jury, we got a printout of that information. I don't know if that's normal or not, but it was certainly useful.
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I'd be very interested in the relevant case law
You can be interested all you want. But you cannot base your verdict on what you think about case law. All you are allowed to base a verdict on is the information presented in the courtroom.
As for blocking people off from "information" while on jury duty, the threat of a few days in jail if caught will take care of that.
All parties in a court action, whether it be civil or criminal, deserve a fair, impartial, and unbiased jury. Were it you in the courtroom I
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It wouldn't bother me if you got the info from Wikipedia - as long as I got to edit it first.
Re:So change the rules (Score:5, Insightful)
The jury isn't the trier of law, that's the judge's job. The jury is the trier of fact. Any application of case law independently by a juror, wherever they derived the knowledge and however correct it is, would be misconduct. The jury is to determine the facts, not to apply their own understanding of the law. This is important, because the judge articulates and applies the law, and that articulation is subject to review on appeal. A silent, unexplained application of law by a juror (and, a fortiori, multiple of them by different jurors) cannot be effectively reviewed on appeal because no one knows what it is. The deference given to the juries decision on points of fact (it being overruled on appeal only if the evidence could not reasonably support the conclusion found) is entirely dependent on the premise that the jury is just following the instructions they are given and determining the facts in accordance with those.
That's not to say the rules couldn't be changed, but these aren't just peripheral rules -- to change the rules on what jurors can do upends a lot of the fundamental principles of the jury system. (And that's only dealing with the aspect of the trier of fact vs. trier of law role; then there is the whole question of how they perform the role of trier of fact, and the issue of excluded evidence, which often directly involves the Constitutional rights of the people in court, and Constitutional limits on powers of government.
To an extent, the rise in mistrials is a result of it being easier to detect the kinds of violations that people engage in. It's a lot easier for a party to a case to find out and bring to a judge's attention juror misconduct that consists of or is announced in internet postings than when its just talked about around a watercooler.
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Re:So change the rules (Score:4, Interesting)
That jury nullification exists as a de facto power is a very different thing than whether or not it is proper. It certainly is the case that the jury can decide the fact questions presented to it on any basis it chooses, including improper ones. Its a bit more debatable whether jury nullification is proper, but in any case jury nullification is not a finding on what the law is, it is a finding that the law should not be applied at all and that the defendant should be let off notwithstanding the law.
Inasmuch as jury nullification is a desirable power of juries (whether or not technically a proper one), I would say that independent, out-of-court investigation, whose contents are not revealed completely to the parties, by jurors in support of it is equally problematic as such investigation in the jury's role as trier of fact, for the same reason: it brings arguments into the jury deliberations that have not been presented to the parties to the case and which the parties whose interests are harmed have no opportunity to rebut.
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Thats not how it works. Here in Indiana, they give you a multi-page printout with the basic rules of being a juror.
The last 3 pages are a simple checklist of the minimum requirements to find somebody guilty of a certain charge. Of course, the "Simple checklist" states the very high minimums of the said law.
I think... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exposing a systemic problem with the court system. The whole thing is dependent on juries knowing exactly what the lawyers for both sides, and the judge, want them to know, and no more. But there's no real way to enforce that, and there never has been.
It is in the interest of both lawyers to have the most ignorant, moldable, and frankly stupid, set of jurors that they can possibly find. Which I guess makes sense because that's certainly "peers" of most criminals...
That's not to say I would go out and look for information in contravention of a judge's instructions (I have jury duty next week and it'd be stupid not to make that clear) but that doesn't mean I think the rules themselves aren't kind of unreasonable. Last I checked I was still allowed an opinion.
Sorry if this comment's a bit disjointed, it's 7:30 AM and I haven't had my shower yet ;)
So... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
the Interweb is full of lies and damned lies.
So is the Library. I don't see why I should put any more faith in the written words of an anonymous stranger simply because it is on paper rather than on my screen. Books can be (and often are) just as biased or distorted as anything found on the 'Interweb'.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people are not experts on a subject matter.
It's like self diagnosis. If you look up your symptoms you could find that you have a mild cold, You could also discover that you 'have' any number of exotic deadly diseases. It takes a trained doctor to be able to ask the right quests and examine you and narrow it down to the most likely disease.
Lawyers and judges are skilled at knowing what is and isn't relevant to a case, at knowing how to get vital information from an expert. If you've looked up information that has been left out of a case, there may be a reason it's been left out. The defence might have chosen to leave out a piece of evidence you think would prove innocence deliberately because it carries unforeseen implications.
If you look at someone accused of murder and look up that he has previous convictions for violent assault, that would make it seem more likely he was a murderer. However a judge may view that the assault charges were simple drunken brawls but the murder was planned, cold and calculated. The drunken brawls aren't related enough to the present case to justify the impact they'd have on the jury.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Lawyers and judges are skilled at knowing what is and isn't relevant to a case.
They're also quite skilled at distorting truth and presenting it in a way that manipulates and misleads a jury to get their desired results.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How is this any different than going to a library and looking up info after court?
Well, because you don't have to go to a library. And you don't have to look it up. And you don't have to wait until after court. But other than that, it's identical!
Allow Juriors to ask questions (Score:2)
One of the things that was experimented with about a decade ago was allowing jurors to ask questions. This would apply to both witnesses and council. The reason jurors are looking things up is because they have unanswered questions about the case. Get them an official answer.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/04/State/Change_lets_jurors_su.shtml [sptimes.com]
I didn't get how that was supposed to work (Score:2)
I know that there's a concern an outside party may try to manipulate the outcome of the trial (by t
Re:I didn't get how that was supposed to work (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine one thing that makes the judge qualified to judge what evidence is permissible is a better understanding of the issues (and case law and history) related to things like the 4th amendment.
It may be a "fact" that drugs were found in the defendant's car. This "fact" may be deemed inadmissible if 4th amendment rights were violated. It is possible that despite this the defendant was indeed guilty. But it is also possible corrupt cops planted the "evidence".
I imagine there are a slew of things like this. So although I would chafe under restrictions preventing me from doing basic research to better understand things related to a particular case, there's no need to disrespect a judge's role here.
Re:I didn't get how that was supposed to work (Score:4, Insightful)
A jury of your peers is a jury of people like you and not, say, a group appointed by the government, or only rich people, or just the judge.
That is part of his job. There are facts that would sway the jury via emotion that should not be considered in the case at hand.
The judge has control over the information available to the jury because the jury is only supposed to consider the information that is relevant to the case. Outside information may prejudice the jury against one party or the other. Consider a case where one party has convictions for a different kind of crime many years ago, say marijuana possession. The person is arrested for petty theft. Should convictions for possession be admissible in the current case? That is what the judge decides.
How about a case where a woman is charged with a crime and in the past lost her children to Child Protective Services. Should the fact that her children are in foster care be considered in her current case?
How about a case against someone many believe killed two people and was acquitted? Should that case be introduced? It could cause members of the jury to vote guilty, not for the allegation in the case, but rather for the case he has already been acquitted of.
Who is going to monitor, for how long, and how? And, what exactly is personal gain? What if someone does it to send the defendant to jail because he does not like the defendant? Or, the defendant's wife? Or, tries to get the defendant off for similar reasons? What if one wants to just tarnish the record of one of the attorneys?
One thing to keep in mind is that most people are terrible at determining what is relevant to making a decision and, as a result, make bad decisions.
I've done jury duty. (Score:5, Insightful)
I had access to the internet through a wireless hotspot, and I read
I was told that the case had to be decided upon by the edivence heard in court, and that I wasn't to discuss the case outside of the court room or deliberation room. So I didn't. It was that simple.
It's not a question of the rules needing to be changed, it's the need for people to follow them. If they don't, they tarnish the legal process and the people will lose faith. Trial by Jury will become Trial by Media, and we all know that they are TOTALLY unbias.
As usual, this is an education problem, not a rule problem. As IT folk, you should know that the answer is almsot always "educate the user" not "restrict the user".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, most people are more easily swayed by emotion than you are.
I agree, I followed the instructions given in the trial. When evidence was mentioned, then withdrawn because it wasn't relevant, the jury as a whole ignored it. At least, they appeared to... I know I did what we were told. (In this case, the 'evidence' would have leaned towards a guilty verdict, and we came up with a unanimous not-guilty right off.)
But not everyone is able to use logic rather than emotion. Some people feel a need
Double-Edged Sword (Score:2, Insightful)
This can cut both ways. Yes a juror can look up stuff on the Internet and find out things that the judge has not ruled admissible. But on the other hands, judges aren't infallible even if they're honest, sometimes they make mistakes, don't understand things well enough themselves to make a truly informed assessment of potential facts, or in the worst scenarios are lazy, biased or even crooked. So being able to look something up on the Internet could as potentially reveal exculpatory information. Supposedly
So.. you're telling me that by reading /. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So.. you're telling me that by reading /. (Score:4, Funny)
Only if you were sitting on a jury judging a RIAA trial or Hans Reiser ;)
Contempt (Score:3, Insightful)
Liberal application of 30 or 90 day contempt charges would fix this pretty quickly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey cool. Once we get people used to the idea that jurors can be held in contempt, then we can starting holding them in contempt whenever they don't vote the "right" way.
"Juror, I told you that you have to find the defendant guilty! 30 days!"
The Internet will save our judicial system. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Internet will save our judicial system. (Score:4, Interesting)
"legal system to do things right, a..."
Bull.
outside information can prejudice a juror. The role of juror is to come to a conclusion based on the allowed 'facts' in that court room.
If the internet was an unimpeachable source, then we could have a nice discussion about looking into it and it's impact on the criminal system. Since it is not, then you have jurors as likely as not getting bad information.
If it isn't challenged, then it is true for that court room.
Re:The Internet will save our judicial system. (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget to include some judges in this (Score:3, Informative)
The overwhelming majority of judges, like the majority of jurors, are savvy enough to understand and deal properly with the ramifications of the information age and how it can impact legal proceedings. But, like some jurors, there are some judges who have not adapted to the information age and fail to control the juries or the attorneys in the cases they hear. Judge Ito was completely ill-equipped to handle the television and celebrity angle of the O.J. criminal trial, so it is no surprise that some judges today are struggling to comprehend and deal with Twitter, Facebook, Google, iPhones, Blackberries, and so forth.
I am not so sure that all of this is a bad thing. I now perceive, for good or for bad, that criminal defense lawyers often have no trouble crossing the line from "guarantee this defendant a fair trial" to "set this defendant free no matter the cost". Yes, I want an aggressive lawyer defending me if I go to trial, but I also want ethical lawyers debating the case before an ethical and informed judge. And if those parties can't be ethical, then I surely hope the jury is smart enough to see the truth and decide accordingly.
Finality and Morons (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not about "blaming" the technology. It is about adapting to the technology. In the old days, as one poster notes, a fool juror would retire to the bar and blab about the trial. This kind of blabbing would get the juror removed and might get a mistrial--if there was anybody out there who was motivated enough to report it to the court.
Now, fool jurors can blab about a trial indelibly, and to the whole world. It is very easy for such information to get back to the court.
You have no idea how awful it is for a perfectly good trial to get mistrialed because of a misbehaving juror. Think about rape victims having to testify about their ordeal a second time. Think about crucial murder witnesses who die after the mistrial and before the retrial. Think about thousands and thousands of dollars in preparation--wasted. And a civil "bet the company" trial where a juror leaks inside information . . .
The internet is increasing the frequency of mistrials. How will we respond? Ignore it and put up with the extreme waste? Penalize jurors? Sequestrate jurors? There are not a lot of choices.
I say hammer the juror whose misbehavior requires a mistrial--with very steep civil and criminal penalties.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
allow informational sites and searches to be counted as admissable
That's a great idea! So, the next time I stand accused of murder, I'll simply edit my Wikipedia page to say "Shakrai did not commit this crime" and rest easy in the knowledge that my acquittal will follow soon thereafter. Think of all the money I can save on defense attorneys now ;)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Your argument is perhaps better for suggesting that the burden of evidence to mount a prosecution should be higher for criminal charges.
There are lots of people who cry wolf, but there is also the occasional boy who cries wolf and ends up getting eaten. You could say he deserved to be eaten but that would still leave you with a wolf roaming around that now has a taste for human meat...
Metaphors aside, it's up the lawyers and ultimately the judge on how relevant someone's history is to a trial and if their h
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"..., then your plan/rules/process was fucked to begin with."
No it doesn't. Technology changed, and yes the rules will change, but that does not mean the rules were fucked to begin with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot:
A large bailiff spots you using a cell phone/PDA/whatever in the courtroom and confiscates it.
When I served jury duty, one of the first instructions from the judge was to turn off all such communications devices. I imagine that violating such an instruction could result in more than confiscation. Possibly a few days in the cell next to the defendant you were supposed to be trying.
Very few people are so important that they society can't function without their continual input to Twitter. OTOH, i
Re:No fact checking for you! (Score:4, Informative)