Lawyer Demands Jury Stops Googling 517
coomaria noted an unsurprising story about how courts are having problems with jurors Googling during cases. As anyone who has ever been called for jury duty knows, you aren't allowed to get outside information about the case you are hearing, but apparently the iPhone makes it far too easy to ignore this advice. A lawyer is trying to get jurors to sign a form explicitly stating they won't "use 'personal electronic and media devices' to research or communicate about the case." Of course, I'm not exactly sure why a juror should need to sign something for your iPhone but not a newspaper.
Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not aloud"? "To easy"?
Is there an editor in the house?
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:4, Funny)
Axing 4 pooper speeling is allot.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:5, Funny)
Ewe muss bee knew hear. Wee owl ewes spill chuckers. Hour spilling is all wise prefect.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:4, Insightful)
The submitter's errors aren't SMS-isms, they're just plain old poor English.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:5, Funny)
Damn SMS and IM is killing all languages all over the planet.
Damned SMS and IM are killing all languages all over the planet.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you think proper spelling is important (I am not saying that it isn't) then you should make a case, not a complaint."
Ok, how about this: proper spelling is a sign of a writer's respect for the reader off his work. Misspellings are jarring to the flow of reading comprehension, and are a way of saying "I don't want to put in the labor of proofreading, but I don't mind if you have to work harder to read it." In some literature, that is the intent, but the vast majority of the time it is simply carelessness.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:5, Funny)
proper spelling is a sign of a writer's respect for the reader off his work.
+1 Ironic...
proper spelling is a sign of a writer's respect for the reader of his work.
FIFY
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay.
If spelling changes then we'll no longer be able to read Shakespeare's plays, our founding documents the Declaration and the Constitution, or great works of literature like A Tale of Two Cities. By affixing spelling and stabilizing it, you preserve access to the past generations' writings. By allowing changes, you end-up with incomprehensible documents such as this:
Bifil that in that seson, on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage, To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At nyght was come into that hostelrye, Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye, Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle, In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde. The chambres and the stables weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste; And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, That I was of hir felaweshipe anon, And made forward erly for to ryse, To take our wey, ther as I yow devyse.
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Except you can't really fix things (Score:4, Informative)
Except you can't really fix things. Languages evolve and change no matter what.
Rome tried to fix the language, and basically the result was that it split into two increasingly diverging languages. Increasingly the language of the common folk, the so called "Vulgar Latin" had less and less to do with what you'd nowadays think of Classical Latin. Unless you were of senatorial class (by empire times it had become a hereditary class) or had some other reason to learn the official form, you probably didn't and it would sound as funny to you as your quote above to a modern English speaker.
The Greeks tried the same with, well, Greek and it too split.
English itself is an example of precisely the results of the idiocy of trying to stop language evolution. At one point English was actually phonetic. E.g., "knight" was really read as it's written, i.e., with a short "i" like in "time" and with the "k" and "g" and "h" actually pronounced. I.e., akin to the German "knecht". But language kept changing. From that word it turned into the modern one which sounds like "night". But due to stupidly trying to stick to the old form, the written form didn't change too, and English writing by and large stopped being phonetic. You're back to, basically, words being hieroglyphs that offer you no indication of how it's pronounced. It's using a phonetic alphabet, but phonetic it ain't any more.
And what was the gain? As I was saying, language still evolved anyway. Words changed, meanings changed, constructs changed, etc. That didn't stop at all. Just the orthography increasingly became an arbitrary bunch of letters that are associated with that word for nothing more than historical reasons.
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i.e., with a short "i" like in "time"
Sorry to be pedantic but a "short i" would be like in "it". The i in "time" is a "long i", aka the vowel is pronounced like the name of the letter.
Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you are using a 14th century Chaucer work to demonstrate how language needs to be PRESERVED, so we can view a 16th century Shakespeare work... When both men were the progenitors of modern English?
I guess Chaucer should have used spell check? I guess nobody in the whole world has read Chaucer? Or what about all those pesky words Shakespeare made up, misspelled (sometimes intentionally to rhyme or to properly stick to pentameter), or Anglicized words (HelsingÃr = Elsinore anyone? -- by the way Elsinore passes firefox's spellchecker, but the actual name HelsingÃr (or Helsingor) does not...)
Shakespeare was great because he told old stories in a new language... He invented the language as he went along. English belongs to Shakespeare because he did not let scholastic jackassitude dictate how he could use the language.
Language belongs to those who write, and write interesting things... Language does not belong to nit-pickey grammar slaves, or the stuck up high-society high-horse education snobs... The languages that did, promptly died after said snobs fell from power.
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P.S.
Just imagine if Roman-Latin has been stabilized in 500 A.D. with fixed spelling and mandatory education. Rather than have a bunch of devolved Latinate dialects, Western Europe would now be united under one universal tongue which would make communication between the peoples of the EU much easier.
Newspaper (Score:2)
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What about TV? Especially in OJish cases where every TV on the planet is blaring about it!
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What about TV? Especially in OJish cases where every TV on the planet is blaring about it!
When you're a juror you're not supposed to really watch TV. A friend is about to give a victim's statement on a murder case and she isn't allowed to discuss the facts of the case, watch TV, call anybody about it, read the newspaper, or do just about anything that could skew her opinion on the case. Sure, you can watch Happy Days reruns on TV Land if your shitty motel 6 room that the district attourney set you up in has it, but when you're flown out of state to give testimony on a case and you have nothing t
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Yes. In important cases, they won't even let the jurors go home. They put them up in hotels. They're not allowed to speak to the press, watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, ... basically any interaction with the outside world is forbidden for the duration of the trial.
Re:Newspaper (Score:5, Funny)
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You beat me to it so I'll just add my two cents. :)
Newspapers are supposed to be written by professional journalists with professional standards. The articles those journalists write are then supposed to be edited by editors with years, if not decades, of experience. The internet, in contrast, is full of air-bags with no professional standards.
Allowing jurors to be exposed to what is written on
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Newspapers are supposed to be written by professional journalists with professional standards. The articles those journalists write are then supposed to be edited by editors with years, if not decades, of experience.
How's that mythical land you're inhabiting?
Professional journalists are just better at googling.
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No, apparently only The iPhone is capable of mobile Internet magic with the Google mothership. Before The iPhone there was no way to ruin a fair trial with outside information, because it was too difficult to reach any sort of outside information at all, of any type on any medium. Also, the magical aura of The iPhone is so blinding that the jurors are too distracted to hear explicit legal instructions from the judge.
Or perhaps they're smarter than we think. Next time I want to get out of jury duty I'll j
Just confused? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they're just trying to figure out what all the complicated legalese being thrown out by both sides is supposed to mean by checking out Wikipedia or Findlaw?
Re:Just confused? (Score:4, Informative)
That's is why a jury is allowed to ask questions and ask for read back of testimony during jury deliberations. A juror might google segregation, read the first sentence or two, and think that Plessy v. Ferguson [wikipedia.org] is still good law.
Re:Just confused? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. That is also why jurors are not supposed to reach decisions on matters of law, only matters of fact. If the jury members need to understand the legalese someone is doing something wrong.
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Considering that the jury are bound by the legalese in their every day life, I would hope they understand it to the letter. If they do happen to encounter something they are not familiar with during the trial, it should be encouraged for them to become more familiar with what is going on. It is their duty as a citizen to know and understand the law, after all.
Ignorance of legalese is not required to judge trials on fact alone. It is quite easy for a normally functioning brain to separate the two concepts.
Re:Just confused? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. That is also why jurors are not supposed to reach decisions on matters of law, only matters of fact. If the jury members need to understand the legalese someone is doing something wrong.
Actually, Juries CAN decide the matters of law, it is just frowned upon. It is called Jury Nullification, where a jury, despite of the facts, simply ignores the law.
Honestly, a lot of our really bad laws can be and should be nullified by juries, and until we get widespread informed juries, bad laws will continue to be enforced.
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Yeah, well, except that if you give any suggestion that you, as a juror, might disagree with the law and ignore it in your ruling, you'll be rejected by the prosecution during the juror selection process. I suppose you could lie to them when they ask you whether you'd uphold the law...
Re:Just confused? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ehh, sorta. From what research I've done, "jury nullification" is more a byproduct of the fact that "no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States" (7th Amendment) and the protection against being tried again for the same crime once you're found innocent (5th Amendment).
In other words, once a jury finds a person innocent it doesn't matter at all why they did it. Hell, they could all have been bribed and their decision would still stand (though they and the people who paid them may all be subject to prosecution themselves). In that sense, yes, "I don't approve of the law" is going to hold up.
The most recent court decisions on the matter basically go like this: Yes, you can do it, because we can't stop you. But yes, if anybody tells you that you can do it the judge can declare a mistrial. And yes, if the judge believes you're going to do it he can throw you off the jury pre-emptively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#United_States). Presumably, if you brought it up in the jury room and the judge found out he could also declare a mistrial at that point, though I've not seen any specific evidence for or against that assumption.
So, yeah, it exists, but I wouldn't agree with those who call it a right. It's a byproduct of our system that the courts really don't want you to have or to exercise, they just can't really stop you.
jury nullification - trying fact AND the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually this is incorrect. Jurors are supposed to try the facts, AND, the law. Why? Because if the law is unjust, then it should not be upheld. You should research something called jury nullification. Here is a good place to start-- http://www.fija.org/ [fija.org]
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This cuts both ways. Juries are also free to ignore a just law. Juries made heavy use of this power in the South from the end of the Civil War up until rather late in the 20th century, to convict black defendants who should have been acquitted, and to acquit white defendants who should have been convicted.
I've always believed what you described is not a fault of Jury Nullification, but rather a symptom of what happens when you're not being tried by a jury of your peers. If the jury had included blacks as well, that wouldn't have been a problem.
Proponents of nullification often overlook the problems with it. For instance, it violates the principle that all should be equal before the law. If X and Y commit the same acts, and are both charged under the same law (a law that most think is OK, but, say 10% oppose), and X is convicted but Y is acquitted because by chance he got one of th 10% on his jury, that's pretty damn unjust for X.
It's true that this is very unjust for X, but it's just as unjust to convict Y for breaking an unjust law simply because someone else was also convicted of said unjust law. In the end, a jury system depends on the interpretation of the jury at hand. There's always a
Re:Just confused? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it turns out that plain english is not always as precise as it needs to be for the formulation of laws and legal principles. Witness, for example, the amount of legal scholarship that has gone into figuring out how we ought to define words like "reasonable" and "intent."
Law is a profession, and like any other complicated and substantive profession it has its own vocabulary. In a well run courtroom, the legalese will be reserved for arguing points of law in front of the judge - points that the jury isn't supposed to be concerned with. Then, when trying to establish the actual facts of the case, a lawyer ought to speak in a way the jury understands. He fails to do this at his own peril.
Of course, there are a lot of crappy lawyers out there, so I'm sure juries often do get confused by issues that they are not supposed to be deciding in the first place. When this happens they should ask the judge for clarification.
Allowing juries to taint themselves by giving them internet access during deliberations is probably one of the worst possible solutions to this problem.
Re:Just confused? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think if you'd ever been on a jury you would know that trial attorneys typically dumb down arguments and presentations to a level that would shock most slashdotters (e.g., "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.") IAAL and it's sad to reduce complex (and interesting) technical issues into baby talk so 8 unemployed people from the mall can pick a winner in a million dollar business dispute.
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I've always maintained that if I'm ever falsely accused of a crime then I would waive my right to a jury trial and go with a judge. While not exactly perfect I figure a judge will be a lot harder to sway with over the top, scare mongering arguments that the DA might prefer to use on a jury. However if I'm actually a guilty, hell yeah I want a jury trial! Again figure the judge will see through some bullshit but with a jury of my nominal peers I'm willing to give the Chewbaca defense a shot or whatever else
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Maybe they're just trying to figure out what all the complicated legalese being thrown out by both sides is supposed to mean by checking out Wikipedia or Findlaw?
Defining the law is the judge's responsibility - and the purely legal decisions are his alone to make.
He brings to the task a lifetime of experience in court - and his mistakes are open and visible and can be corrected on appeal.
Legal encyclopedias are held in generally low regard in the states.
The general reference encyclopedia - particularly on
Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, based on my uninformed, mysanthropic and cynical view of the current generation, I figure it might have been more like:
Lawyer: "Mr Burns, can you tell us in your own words what... Err... Your honour, the jury is playing with their phones again instead of paying attention!"
Judge: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I remind you that you're supposed to pay attention? Someone's freedom is at stake here."
Jurror 1: "Sorry. I was paying attention."
Lawyer: "Your honour, please ask her what we were talking about."
Prosecution: "Objection!"
Judge: "Overruled. Mrs Smith, can you tell us what the last question to the witness was?"
Jurror 1: "I can has cheezburger? LOL!"
Witness: "Did she actually pronounce 'LOL'?"
Judge: "Silence, please. Ok, I see. Next member of the jury? Can you tell us what was being debated?"
Jurror 2: "Chewbacca defense?"
Lawyer: "What? Your honour, I must..."
Judge: "Silence, please! Next member of the jurry? You, please?"
Jurror 3: "Huh? What?"
Judge: "What are you using that phone for, anyway? I must remind you that you're not allowed to look up any other information about the case than that presented in this court."
Jurror 3: "Ah, nah, my girlfriend was sexting me her breasts. Sorry."
Jurror 2: "Me too."
Jurror 3: "I hope you mean your girlfriend."
Jurror 2: "Nah, yours."
Jurror 3: "Well, your mom was sexting me hers."
Jurror 2: "Dude, mom is dead..."
Jurror 4: "Geesh, guys, cut it out. I was cybering this hot chick and just wrote "your mom" by mistake. Crap."
Jurror 5 blushes and quickly folds his phone and shoves it in the pocket.
Jurror 4: "Crap, now she logged out."
As a former Juror... (Score:5, Informative)
You're not supposed to read the newspaper either.
Re:As a former Juror... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As a former Juror... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes we wouldn't want anyone to color anyone's perception of any facts, of law or of the circumstances of the case, would we?
No wait, that is what the attorneys are doing and I expect news bans and Google bans are lawyers attempting to protect their income streams.
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interpretation" by a cabal of priests.
And this is why the majority of people instinctively hates lawyers, as even if most people cannot vocalize it, an average person's intrinsic moral compass is able to detect that something is profoundly wrong with the very idea of a lawyer.
Re:As a former Juror... (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't argue the fact that law and legal process have become perverted, however I still like the idea that if I am in a court of law facing some kind of serious accusation, there are certain norms and procedures. For example, the prosecution is not allowed to make up completely fictitious shit just for fun, and present it to the jury in an attempt to sway their opinion. A random twitterer however, is able to make up random shit about me, and post doctored photoshops, and parrot third-hand accusations.
I'm not sure I am comfortable with the idea that the jury who is deciding my fate are all sitting there logged onto reddit reading who knows what about me while the case is still underway.
Are you?
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That didn't stop Mike Nifong before he'd seriously disrupted the lives of the people he attempted to ruin, and before it cost them thousands and thousands of dollars. He got caught - how many haven't?
Knowing the facts and the people might be good (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that jurors need to be entirely ignorant of the case is a relatively recent invention and arguably a bad idea. If you go back to a time when people lived in such small towns that everybody was likely to know everybody, you find a different notion: that it was good for jurors to know not just the facts but the people involved, because already knowing a witness made it easier to accurately judge the credibility of that person.
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[...] with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests [...]
I can't help but wonder exactly what prostate as a verb means. It sounds deeply unpleasant.
Not being a spelling nazi, but that one is too fun to pass up. ;)
Re:As a former Juror... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes we wouldn't want anyone to color anyone's perception of any facts, of law or of the circumstances of the case, would we?
No, we wouldn't. You don't want public opinion and emotion getting in the way of the facts.
No wait, that is what the attorneys are doing and I expect news bans and Google bans are lawyers attempting to protect their income streams.
You really believe it would be better if trials were left to popular public opinion?
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
That's a great example, but not in the way that you think. The Hammurabi code didn't really work that well in practice. It turns out, it's really not that simple. You can't just build a state machine, input what happened, and output punishment. For example, do you see the difference between a woman that kills her abusive husband in the heat of the moment, and someone that abducts, tortures, and murders a random person. Our modern system is designed to deal with things like degree and severity, and adapt as times change. Lot's of laws have subjective terminology, like "reasonable", that's designed to change as people change. That's why we have lawyers.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
You're being hypocritical here. You're pontificating about the law being turned into a religion. You need people to interpret and argue because things are never as simple as you'd like them to be. You need to be able to balance contradictory ideals. A great example of this is defamation law. To balance first amendment rights and the public's "right to know", there is a different standard for public figures than there is for everyone else. In order to win a defamation case, the public figure must prove actual malice, that the person knew what they were saying wasn't true, and said it to hurt the public figure, maliciously. You need to be able to argue, and then have an impartial group of people, not swayed by public opinion, weight the arguments and make a decision.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interp
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Oh I get it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh I get it. (Score:4, Funny)
Bing!
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I can't get that damn sound out of my head. Stop it!
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I have a strange feeling of déjà vu...
Because (Score:2)
using an news paper to research is more difficult, not as up to date, and if sequestered that won't have on delivered.
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I'd say it's more because there's now a group of people who cannot function at their full capacity without ready access to the web. A group of people for whom the internet has become an off site long term memory, slower than your regular one but much larger and much more reliable. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's entirely possible that their full capacity is significantly above the rest of the populations, only that they feel somewhat crippled without access to that information.
After all, there are
If jurors were aloud... (Score:4, Funny)
...then hearing the lawyers would be deafened, rendering justice blind.
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Stop monkeying around [wordpress.com]!
Twitter (Score:4, Funny)
"just ruld guilty 4 life LOL pmita prison!"
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More Work (Score:2, Insightful)
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If they don't stop this behavior, Police who testify will have to use something more convincing than a quote from Wikipedia to put someone behind bars.
I don't know, I'm still waiting on a police officer to testify and use the Chewbacca Defense [wikipedia.org].
What about the "CSI Effect"? (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, but my cousin is and her husband is a police officer, and one of her biggest complaints is that jurors are now expecting evidence to be collected and more importantly processed along the lines of the tv show CSI. Where DNA results are turned around in an hour and even bullets collected in the pouring rain can still be matched to a national gunpowder manufacturer database.
Re:What about the "CSI Effect"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the CSI effect, it's the "most Americans are stupid" effect.
Honestly, Most can not tell the difference between Fantasy on TV and reality. this is why a jury in a technical case is not a "jury of your peers" unless the jury is compromised of IT and CS people.
Re:What about the "CSI Effect"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll take twelve less-intelligent peers than one intellectual elected official any day.
Re:What about the "CSI Effect"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree!
Those damn intellectuals, ruining everything with their thinking and their logic, and making decisions based on evidence.
And, even worse, our schools are full of intellectual types trying to convince kids that book-learnin' is important, and that scientific method works.
Bring on the less intelligent, wholesome, family-oriented Real(tm) Americans(tm) who can just Know things without having to spend all that time worrying and checking out whether what the Know is "correct".
Re:What about the "CSI Effect"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. American are not stupid. No more then any other country.
Considering the average American's lack of basic understanding of science and mathematics compared to nearly every other developed country, I do not believe that your statement is accurate. Your statement is especially inaccurate in this context, where critical evaluation of scientific data is important to nearly every case involving forensic evidence.
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IANAL, but I served on a jury last summer, and I think the "CSI Effect" is a nice counterbalance to the "Cops are Gods Effect". In the past, jurors accepted any evidence presented by police officers as unambiguous and unquestionable... and DNA evidence especially was treated like a stone tablet handed down from God himself.
Partly as a result of CSI, people now understand that there's good police work and bad police work, and DNA evidence isn't as ironclad as the prosecutor claims.
Case in point: in the tria
Why this is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
If jurors search online for information about the case or the defendant, then it makes it harder to maintain the presumption of innocence.
For example, the media might report all sort of information about the case: the defendant had previously been seen hanging around the schoolyard, the defendant was "known to police", he was convicted of a similar crime 20 years before, etc.
Some of this information might be true, and some of it might not be true. If it's raised during the court case, then it can be rebutted by the other side. If it's just speculation printed in the media and found out by the jurors from their hotel room, the defence might not know what they have to rebut.
Of course .. this is going to get harder and harder as computers and the
internet become more and more pervasive.
Rich.
Re:Why this is a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Since both the DA and defence council are obviously biased one way or the other, letting the jury do some fact-finding of their own seems reasonable to me. (Caveat: I live in a country that does not use a jury system, so my proposal might entail problems I cannot forsee. Instead of a jury, Sweden has a system in which volunteers are elected to serve in four year periods. All courts are presided over by a judge, who obviously has legal training, but the other people needn't have it).
Re:Why this is a good thing (Score:4, Informative)
The defense and prosecution attorneys are biased against each other and both will be experts in questioning witnesses. Together, they do a better job of grilling the witnesses than the jury could hope to do. All the jury has to do is listen, take notes, and come to a decision.
Re:Why this is a good thing (Score:4, Informative)
To add to this excellent post, it is also critical as a means of keeping law enforcement in line. If the police obtain evidence by means of unlawful search and seizure, the judge can and should ban that evidence from being presented in court. It isn't banned from being printed in the media though; free speech and all.
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A better approach would be this:
1. Illegally-siezed evidence is fully admissible. If somebody commits a crime then police error should not be a reason to excuse the crime. The nature of the discovery of the evidence should also be disclosed to the jury.
2. Officers who illegally-sieze evidence should be seriously punished - I'm talking serious fines or jail-time. It should be illegal to perform an illegal search (well, uh, duh). This needs to be taken seriously, and penalities need to actually be appli
Re:Why this is a good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
1. You've just opened the door to a police state. No thanks. Besides, the crime isn't "excused" but evidence that might be used to convict is ruled inadmissible. Use different evidence, that's all.
2. The rub is this: "officers who..." For an illegal wiretap, who's culpable? The technician who installed it? The officer who listened? The commanding officer who ordered the tap? The judge who signed the warrant that was later invalidated? Who gets charged?
And then what jury would convict them? If an officer is charged with illegally obtaining evidence that catches a serial child rapist murderer, can you honestly see a panel of jurors sending him to prison? Really? They'd set him free or slap him on the wrist.
This is why there are rules of evidence and defendants have the rights they do, to prevent decay into a lawless police state.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bill Clinton issued pardons on far worse offenses as political rewards
TBH I never understood why the US puts up with presidential pardons. Why on earth can the president pardon someone and how is that different from having a King?
Rich.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why people need to be taught about the nature of sources and their bias. That applies in both the voting booth and the jury room.
If I Googled a case and found press reports, I'd probably be fairly skeptical of the information, or I'd at least look at how it was actually obtained. Granted, I'm not necessarily a typical juror. However, it is possible for an educated juror to weigh outside info in making their decisions.
In any case, as you point out at some point these problems are going to become i
Courts don't like Jurors (Score:2, Interesting)
The law hates jurors in the first place - all those non-professionals who evaluate things in terms of right and wrong and not on the pure bases of compliance with appropriate legal loopholes.
It seems like the modern court system starts with the assumption that jurors only mess things up. Then it has rules of evidence so that the jury is given precisely the right information so that they reach the "appropriate" conclusion.
I understand the issues with expert testimony and all that. IMHO some kinds of expert
Nutty Judges... (Score:3, Interesting)
Last time I was sitting on a jury they took all our phones and PDA's. No electronic devices allowed.
What nutty judges are allowing the jurors to even have their phones on them? so they can be googling while sitting there? Although unless you are sequestered, you can go home and google everything you heard that day...
Yeah, I don't get it, either (Score:2)
If you're supposed to be sequestered, I assume that they remove access to communication devices like phones, PDAs, laptops, etc..., the same way that they don't give you newspapers.
If you're not sequestered, I'm going to assume that the judge/court already instructs you not to read or look up outside information about the case and explains to you exactly what the punishment is for breaking the court's instructions.
Now given the extent to which the court tracks the actions of jurors, I'm going to assume that
iPhone but not a newspaper (Score:2, Informative)
America's Got Justice (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
well then we should do nothing to try and make it better~
Who writes these things? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Googling"...?
"the iPhone makes it far to easy to ignore this advice"...?
Did the iPhone suddenly invent mobile internet access? Web access has been a standard feature of every cell phone and PDA sold in the world (certainly in Europe and Asia) since years before the iPhone even existed. And is Google now somehow the only way to contact other people or read news websites?
Can these articles at least be tagged with "productplacement" or possibly "fanboysummary"?
And anyway, sequestered jurors aren't allowed to keep cellphones, while non-sequestered jurors can even watch TV, so the whole point is nonsensical.
Re: (Score:2)
iPhone is the term that is used now becasue of it's huge usage.
Language does this all the time, get used to it.
Great moments in court history... (Score:3, Funny)
"This verdict is written on a cocktail napkin. And it still says 'guilty'... And 'guilty' is spelled wrong!"
"I'm not wearing a tie at all."
Mistrial? (Score:3, Funny)
"...the iPhone makes it far too easy..."
Need a mistrial? There's an app for that.
Keep em ignorant (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't want these jurors looking up information and being educated. Just what we tell them. Period. No dictionaries, thesarus, the more ignorant and impressionable we can keep jurors the better...
Seriously, what government in their right mind wants jurors not to have resources to research what they are being told?
Re:Keep em ignorant (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, because if you were on trial accused of dealing drugs, you would want the jury to know you were arrested for smoking pot even though the judge in the trial said it was not relevant to the case. And, then when they found you guilty, even though you were innocent because they had developed a biased opinion of you from their internet research, I am sure you will have no problem with it.
Just like if you were arrested at 17 for statutory rape of your 18yo girlfriend (yes, this is possible), you would want the jury to know that you were arrested for rape when a woman IDs you as her rapist, even though there is no physical evidence and little circumstantial evidence and the judge has ruled that your previous arrest (and possible conviction) is not germane to the case.
OH, and I am sure you would want jurors reading blogs that say "He did it! We know he did it! The police just screwed up the case!" while deciding your fate.
Google is tempting (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Heaven forbid... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're ever on the defending end of a case, would you REALLY trust people to "inform themselves" about your case? From the internet, of all places? It's bad enough people watch CSI and end up in a jury box honestly thinking that's how forensic evidence really works.
We can't even trust people to "inform themselves" about national issues like health care reform - something that would actually effect their own lives, let alone make or break yours.
Confiscate the damn phones at the door.
On a lighter note: don't forget that with only a few exceptions, the ones who end up in a jury are the people too stupid to get out of it. :)
=Smidge=
Re:Heaven forbid... (Score:5, Interesting)
On a lighter note: don't forget that with only a few exceptions, the ones who end up in a jury are the people too stupid to get out of it. :)
I don't know why this is on a lighter note; this is a real problem. People on juries are people with a strong sense of social responsibility and people too stupid to get out of it. You can probably guess the ratio of the former to the latter. Given how important a functioning judiciary is to society, jury service really ought to be better rewarded, so competent people don't have such a strong incentive to get out of it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was picked to be a juror on a civil "slip and fall" case. I wanted to serve. The defense attorneys used their peremptory challenges to remove all educated people on the jury, including myself.
Also, back to the story topic, jurors were not allowed any type of electronic device in the entire courthouse either.
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Re:Heaven forbid... (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding. My wife was selected for the Missouri jury pool last month. Her compensation (per day) was a little over $20. This is well below minimum wage, and for those people who live paycheck-to-paycheck missing even one or two days of work is a hugely unfair burden.
I understand my civic responsibilities, the social contract, etc., but I think this makes a strong case for civil disobedience until jurors get fairly compensated for their time.
Re:Heaven forbid... (Score:4, Interesting)
jury service really ought to be better rewarded
That way, we can have people wanting to do jury service to get rich, hang all those "social responsibility" and "right and wrong" and "justice" notions.
Not sure "money" (or reward, whatever) is the answer to getting a "smart" and "just" jury...
Unfortunately, it does seem that the jury system was set up in a different era and maybe the general outlook, priorities, and "morals" or ethics were different.
Now, it seems that most people simply don't care ... about really anything. People get far more upset about dying in an online RPG than reading about a real person getting murdered.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I want the people deciding my fate to make their decision based on what they heard about the case on Fox News rather than information that meets reasonable criteria to be considered evidence.
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I hate to break it to you but I would have ruled against the most recent file sharer if I had been on his jury and I'm certainly more well informed about the actions of RIAA than most people.
His defense boiled down to "it was fair use for me to share 800 songs with thousands of people I don't know". Then he went on the stand and not only admitted to everything he was accused of, including lying during the discovery process. He has no one to blame but himself for his current predicament. The rest of us s
Re: (Score:2)
Ok those rock, and for the price they rock really hard. I want one for the rare times I go to the movies or to a quiet restaurant.
Thanks for the link!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If there were such a thing as absolute impartial truth available, you wouldn't need a jury in the first place, just a computer to say "yes" or "no".
Re:i have an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Concepts like impartiality are nice, but the only people we trust to be impartial in practice are judges who are carefully appointed after much review - and we all know how technically literate they are.
If you had a third party do this, who would moderate the biases of this group? And who will moderate them? And how do you keep them from influence from outsiders with vested interests? And how do you prevent incremental factual distortions introduced by successive paraphrasing (eg. 'telephone' whispers)? And how will they even decide what is relevant to the case without introducing selection bias?
If jurors were smart enough to do it themselves, great! They can decide what evidence and facts are important to the case they are hearing. If you have non-judiciary third parties involved you're just opening a huge can of worms.