Judge Denies Appeal Based On Juror's Twitter Messages
from the @arklawyer-nice-try,-but-no dept
The legal world is catching on to social media in a pretty big way. Status updates and other messages are commonly cited as evidence, while there's growing concern over jurors' use of Twitter and other services on their mobile phones during trials. In one case, lawyers in Arkansas argued that a juror's tweets showed he was predisposed against their client, and wanted a verdict that would "impress his audience." They appealed the decision against their client based on the juror's 140-character missives, and a judge has now rejected the appeal and let the judgment stand. He said the juror's tweets were in bad taste, but didn't constitute improper conduct. While it doesn't seem like the messages in question reflected any predisposition on the part of the juror, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg of these types of cases, particularly with the definitively unanswered question of whether posting messages to social-networking sites during deliberations breaks jury rules regarding non-disclosure.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Sigh
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Re: Sigh
Not unless you want to cut off the jurors from society for the length of a trial.
Instances like these sometimes make me wish we had professional juries.
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Re: Re: Sigh
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Intriguing
I would assume that includes Twitter messages.
For the most part, it's to prevent jurors becoming biased because of something they read. (Another stipulation was: "Do not do your own research. You are the consider the evidence presented.")
I would think *reading* Twitter might be more dangerous, in the realm of 'removing impartiality'... But only if someone initially posts a Tweet about the case. In this instance, it sounds like the juror didn't say anything about the case specifically, merely that the lawyer(s) are saying he looked predisposed based on his Tweets. As opposed to the extensive questioning (hopefully) asked when the jury was selected to weed out impartial jurors.
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Re: Intriguing
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Appeals based on jury impartiality are... amusing to me. The attorneys have plenty of time to reject jurors for obvious reasons, and sometimes for no reason. There are only two situations that you get a heavily biased juror: The attorney didn't ask the right questions, or the juror lied when answering the questions, which is a different argument entirely.
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It wasn't during the trial
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Is anyone commenting more familiar with UK jury-preparation procedures than my vague memory and willing to fill in the differences between UK and US rules?
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Twitter in court
If a court case is extremely sensitive and if the lawyers wish, the jury may be sequestered. If that happens, they usually are not allowed any contact with the outside world, which may include tv, newspapers, magazines, and even cell phones.
As long as the messages do not show any impropriety then their is nothing wrong with them.
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