Federal Judges Wary of Facebook, Twitter Impact On Juries 154
coondoggie writes "The impact of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and others on federal juries is a concern that judges are frequently taking steps to curb. According to a study 94% of the 508 federal judges who responded said they have specifically barred jurors from any case-connected use of social media."
Re:Self-restraint and following the rules (Score:5, Interesting)
You're telling me. I was on a jury once for a month. The court staff and judge were all super nice as long as we followed the rules and held up our end, but it's tiring and time consuming under the best of situations. You spend 4 days a week going back and forth between trial and hanging out in a room with a group of people you have only one thing in common with. And that one thing you have in common you're not allowed to talk about until deliberations.
It wasn't really that miserable, but I can definitely understand why people would be on FB there if they're on FB normally.
The handicap spots I kind of understand, I don't park in those ever, but I can understand people being frustrated having to park a block away when there's not just one or two handicap spots going unused.
Re:Self-restraint and following the rules (Score:4, Interesting)
I showed up for Jury duty in Michigan as I am required every day at 9AM for a week. Every day the lawyers would visually inspect us and relieve the ones they did not want. Everyone that brought a book was dismissed. Those that were smart enough to figure out that "reading" will get you dismissed started bringing in books about mid week. It was really the same people over and over again on every jury, those not bright enough to correlate some very basic information.
Sadly, in our legal methods of jury stacking, that's exactly what each side wants.