Lawyers Using Facebook Research For Jury Selection 283
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?"
Re:Doesn't pass the smell test (Score:2, Informative)
You expect sense from the court system. That went out the window long ago - at least by the time they started letting prosecution and defense haggle over who should sit on a jury.
Jurors should be selected by lot, and reach their verdict by majority vote, not "consensus". People who think the current circus gives them a better shot at justice, should learn basic probability theory and look up Condorcet's jury theorem.
Re:No Facebook == disqualified? (Score:2, Informative)
"If I didn't agree with the law, I would not convict. If the jury instructions conflicted with my reading of the law, I would not convict."
It's not the jury's place to decide the law actually.
Actually it is, and no less a figure than John Jay (First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) explicitly said so.
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
Thomas Jefferson explained why.
"It is left, therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges, and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty."
and
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
In more contemporary times, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes reminded us of this:
"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact."
So, yes, actually, it *IS* the jury's place to decide the law, in spite of what the court tells you. The jury is the last refuge against tyranny, in that it is the body responsible for administering justice... and "what is lawful" is not necessarily "what is just." Reasonable jurors not only CAN, but HAVE THE MORAL DUTY TO bring a "not guilty" verdict if the law is unjust.