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?"

Doesn't pass the smell test

[sideslash]

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!

Re:siting in a room for as low as $5 a day sucks y

[wjousts]

Read a book

That would actually prejudice me

[Fujisawa Sensei]

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.

Re:That's Stupid

[ElectricTurtle]

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.

Re:A solution:

[causality]

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.

Re:A solution:

[sumdumass]

The point I was trying to make was that even though Atheists aren't nuts, they are treated like they are group of subhumans by most of spiritual America and therefore would be kicked out of any jury pool without having to resort to extreme measures.

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..