Does The Internet Generation Make For Bad Jurors?

from the moving-ahead-with-times dept

Fri, Nov 7th 2008 6:31pm — Mike Masnick

The Lord Chief Justice in the UK has suggested that the internet generation aren't very good on juries because they're more used to reading information on a screen, rather than listening. That's a bit misleading. Just because people are used to reading lots of information or consuming it off of a screen, it doesn't preclude their ability to listen live. However, the suggestions to potentially upgrade the tools for jurors, such as by providing them screens with info, does make some sense. It could make it much easier to present a lot of information to a jury in a more manageable fashion, rather than requiring them to just listen. But, even so, it does seem a bit extreme to suggest that younger jurors are simply unable to listen in the jury box and follow the details of a trial.

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Filed Under: internet, juries, listening, reading, uk

40 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2008 @ 7:09pm

Could it be that the internet generation is more informed and therefore not a "good juror" ?
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Moz, 7 Nov 2008 @ 8:23pm

Perhaps the judge is boring?
I think it's as least as likely that "them young folk ain't got no respect". When faced with days of tedious puffery from starched oiks in funny costumes perhaps younger people decline to play the game? I wonder if that judge in particular finds that older people are better at pretending to stay awake while he talks?

Of course, if the "I'm going to vote for Palin coz she's pretty" generation is in the jury all bets are off.
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Old Fashioned, 7 Nov 2008 @ 10:29pm

Downward Spiral
It's because a generation of humans who take in so much information are tired of hearing everything, that they don't want to hear something that's already said.

They just don't care.
Apathy is setting in.

If it's a murder trial or a shoplifting trial; somebody else's problem, why should anybody be concerned with it or them?
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bob, 7 Nov 2008 @ 11:33pm

Re: Perhaps the judge is boring?
Ya know Moz I kinda like Palin cuz she knew she was having a downs baby and did not kill the child.
Here in my city the black voter turn out was the highest it has even been. I bet they were all voting for Congressman Barr of the Libertarian Party.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 1:01am

when i read the title i thought:

if the internet generation makes (i think it requires an "S" here) for bad jurors then the Justice system is becoming or has become outdated.

i see you already came up with potential solution for that.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 1:07am

Re:
Mike you have another error here: the internet generation aren't very good on juries.

subject is singular even though it represents several people so it should be "the internet generation isn't very good on juries"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 1:26am

Re: Re:
wtf why you gotta critique the grammar? Damn grammar natzi... TROLL!!
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Fsm, 8 Nov 2008 @ 1:27am

Hi:
Hi, my name is Anonymous Coward 5/6 and I like to nitpick details that no one cares about.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 1:45am

why do you care??
This guy keeps talking about american values and how rest of the world doesn't give a damn about it. fuck you man!!

different countries have different values. please do not apply your narrow minded views on "foreign" (or, should I say alien?) matters.

STFU
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R, 8 Nov 2008 @ 4:06am

Might Be True
I've always found it much easier to absorb written information than spoken information. I also agree with #5 - if our generation has a problem, then the system is outdated.
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NullOp, 8 Nov 2008 @ 5:43am

Outdated
We'll probably have to move to using forensic animation tools to get juries to understand what happened in a crime. Currently those tools explain what happened as far as the physics go but could they be used to dissect the crime in such a way jurors would see how things really played out. Personally, I think jurors would vote for the version they liked the best thinking it was sort of like the academy awards.
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Charles (profile), 8 Nov 2008 @ 6:23am

Schools?
How about all those textbooks they shove at us? Is that killing our abilities to listen too?
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Spytrx, 8 Nov 2008 @ 6:23am

There is such a thing as a good juror?

And why are they complaining again? First they complain that there are not enough jurors, then that the intellect of the average leaves a lot to be desired (a intelligent person apparently knows how to avoid jury duty), and now this!

Yes, there are fundamental flaws in the system - for a start we are still using the same language in courts we used 200 years ago. What modern person can keep up with that? This court system is all stuffy, formal, and cloaked in traditions that predate even the laws that are long outdated yet still enforced today.

How about we cut the crab and tell it like it is - the whole system sucks and no person with any integrity wants to be part of it. Time to throw the wigs away, stop the old-boys-club justice system that is failing the country and dish out some real sentences (instead of going after trivial and nonsensical cases)
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 7:00am

Re:
"a intelligent person apparently knows how to avoid jury duty"

More likely that jury rigging has more to do with it.
Each bench can remove potential jurors, I dont remember how many.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 7:48am

Re: Hi:
dude don't start with this.

as far as i know Mike appreciates the corrections unless its in a condescending manner.
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Anonymous, 8 Nov 2008 @ 8:24am

Re: Re: Re:
He's a really shitty troll then. Not a funny thing about this besides your borderline illiterate response.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 8:42am

Re: Re: Re:
Grammar Nazis are not Trolls.

They are Grammar Nazis.
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Dan, 8 Nov 2008 @ 8:45am

Juror innocence or legalese
I would have guessed they would worry finding jurors that have not been previously exposed to the case.

I'll bet it's a case of jurors can't understand legalese. So what? The whole point of a jury is to protect everyone from legalese.

If a lawyer can't boil things down to something a layman can understand, either the underlying law is a bad one, or they have a poor case against the defendant to begin with.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2008 @ 8:50am

Boredom
It might be that the content density of verbal testimony is low enough by comparison, that they can't stay focused.
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Difranco, 8 Nov 2008 @ 10:14am

Re:
I think this is more the case as people become more informed about the role of a juror through organizations like the Fully Informed Jury Association.
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Iko, 8 Nov 2008 @ 2:19pm

Jury Nullification
I'd be curious to know how many of the Internet Generation knows about Jury Nullification as opposed to older generations. Judges certainly hate jurors that know their rights as jurors.
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slimcat (profile), 8 Nov 2008 @ 9:13pm

Love the bogus test on bbc.co.uk
Here
We learn by listening, reading, observing and application so it stands to reason that a person would do better on the second test after listening to the audio and reading the transcript, insuring the result they are looking for. Our British cousins certainly seem to have a lot of time for nonsense.
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sumgi, 9 Nov 2008 @ 4:50am

Attention Spa...WTF!!
I don't think the problem here is that the net jurors know too much, it's that the new generation has trouble sitting through a movie or show and operates on clips. Now put that person in a situation where they have to sit in the same room for hours and listen intently to the subject matter on which the defendants life may depend? Yeah I can see where internet folk would make bad jurors.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2008 @ 11:00am

Skill sets have changed
In the olden days, when nobody could read, people were very good at listening to long discussions and remembering what was said. The part of the brain that listened and remembered got exercised from birth and was well developed.

We now gather a lot more of our information visually, so that has crowded the listening and remembering portion. It's not a matter of being lazy or stupid, it's a matter of being wired differently in response to different stimuli.

This is actually better because the visual pathways have a lot greater bandwidth than the auural pathways, so there's more capacity to absorb information by reading than by listening.

Unfortunately, the legal system still treats jurors as though they are illetrate peasants who have to have everything read to them. It's not only a waste of time, it's counter-productive.

Of course, most lawyers WANT illiterate peasants because they're easier to snow.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2008 @ 12:34pm

Subjunctive
I think the title is in the subjunctive, so it's grammatically correct.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2008 @ 1:28pm

Re:
its the difference between "does make" and just "makes."

"The internet generation does make for a bad jury."
"The internet generation makes for a bad jury."

They are different parts of speech. They're correct in both cases though.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2008 @ 1:30pm

Re: why do you care??
I think you are missing the point. He's not saying anything about American values here, nor is he dissing other's values either. I think you're having a knee jerk reaction to someone saying something negative (and has details to back it up) about where you (maybe?) come from and don't like when outsiders say anything critical about your country.
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Paul, 9 Nov 2008 @ 1:49pm

i find reading to be easier
You can go at your own pace and absorb more. With listening, you have to absorb at the pace which it is read. With reading, I can absorb it slowly and make sure its firmly planted in my head before moving on.
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opit, 9 Nov 2008 @ 7:27pm

Juror quality
There are going to be many 'problems' with younger jurors besides them being more easily bored out of their gourd by bullshit : can you honestly credit Fox viewers with that problem ?
I'll go with the idea that learning focus and ability has changed : that conversational skillsets are comparatively underdeveloped.
Then too...are the jurors ignorant of the facts of the case and/or of the state's agenda ?
Any media hog is going to miss his 'fix' too.
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LBD, 9 Nov 2008 @ 8:36pm

The CSI generation
Actually the CSI generation makes for bad jurors. I have heard that it's so bad that now many criminal atournies, both for the prosecution or defense, ask "have you ever seen CSI or a CSI spin off" with automatic disqualification if you answer yes.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2008 @ 3:36am

I served on an jury in the UK several months ago.

The trial lasted three days, and we heard extensive testimony from four individuals.

As I recall, the "jury information pack" contained a collection of photographs. I maybe misremembering that, and it's entirely possible the photos (presented as evidence at the trial) didn't actually make it out into the jury deliberation chambers and we actually didn't have anything with us from the coutroom apart from our own notes.

Now, in this trial, the guy was guilty as all hell, the lack of evidence was a key point in the prosecution's case, and the defense lawyer so comedically incompetent that several people remarked that they suspected we were actually involved in a "reality TV" production, so it's possible that there wasn't a huge amount of extra documentation that would have helped. But they could at least have included a transcript of the various testimonies.

In answer to LBD's reply 30, there's no jury pool selection in the UK. 200 or so people wait as the main, general jury pool for two weeks of jury service (not sure of the time. There was a massive screw-up on the jury pool records during my time). When a trial starts, 15 people go into a waiting chamber otside the courtroom, they all walk into court, 12 of them get selected at random. The 12 stay, and the other 3 head off back to jury pool.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2008 @ 6:51am

Re: The CSI generation
It's not just CSI. Thirty years ago the local DA came around to my high school. Among his anecdotes was a burglary trial that ended in a hung jury, 11-1 for conviction. The perp had used latex gloves, which were found at the scene. There were no fingerprints lifted the gloves because it's not possible. The one juror voting for acquittal had seen seen an episode of "Columbo" where he had lifted fingerprints from latex gloves, and concluded that the DA was trying to railroad an innocent man.
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Michael, 10 Nov 2008 @ 8:13am

Internet Generation
It could be that Internet Generation jurors can be less swayed by emotion, than by facts. There is no doubt that the trial system would be better served with technology in place to assist jurors during deliberation. The only drawbacks would be older jurors not comfortable with technology and getting courts to switch over. Considering their US can't even sort out their election process with technology I don't see this happening.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2008 @ 8:15am

Re: Perhaps the judge is boring?
I don't think that's a generational issue. In my state there were a number of women of all ages who voted in our current (horrid, IMHO) governor because he had better hair than the incumbent. Actually, our incumbent did have pretty bad hair... but as a deciding factor in the vote? Really??

Back on topic, perhaps it really represents a shift in the learning style of younger generations; because they are so used to having information presented visually, they are better able to retain that than information presented aurally. I know I've always been that way, and I was raised on computers - but I'm not ruling out the possibility that I'm just weird, of course. ^_^
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2008 @ 5:07pm

Re: Re: The CSI generation
Ow. "Columbo" is not the place to get police facts. Still it's better then people trying to re-enact 12 angry men....
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LBD, 10 Nov 2008 @ 5:08pm

Re:
Sounds far more civilized then the US jury situation where the jurors get to feel like they're standing trail themselves at the start.
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Suz, 12 Nov 2008 @ 1:24pm

Jeez
We really can't win. First we get berated because we get all our information from TV (which of course means that we lose the ability to read well) and then we get our information from reading on the internet (which as pointed out above, means we can't listen or watch anymore). Never mind that people currently listen to podcasts and books on tapes which require aural concentration.

Seems like the judge is yet another old fogey complaining how in his day he went uphill in the snow both ways with no shoes, carrying 20 lbs. of books and his brother on his back, all with a smile on his face and a tune on his lips.

You would think people would be glad that reading as a way of obtaining information is continuing to be used. The fact remains that some people take in information in different ways: visually, textually and aurally and that none of these methods are better or worse than others, just more appropriate on some occasions than others.
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