Googling Juror Leads To Verdict Being Overturned
from the a-jury-of-disconnected-peers dept
We were just writing about courts requiring jurors to sign statements saying they would not Google details of cases they were hearing, and just like clockwork, we hear of a jury verdict that was overturned due to a Googling juror. The case is actually from a few years ago, and is only popping up now, because a higher court has said that the decision to overturn the jury verdict was reasonable. There was one other oddity in the case as well: the reason the juror Googled the information was because he was told ahead of time the names of parties involved in cases he might hear. Why? I have no clue... I would think that any court that does that would likely have a situation where almost everyone on the jury did at least a little searching and poking around.
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So what CAN I google ?
I would presumably be fulfilling my civic duty to have some idea what was going on and hence to read up on what insider trading is.
Maybe I would read about past cases, even study what the law says. This much is presumably a good thing for me to do.
But google being google, I'd be bound to end up seeing some mention of the current case.
In the UK things are often "sub judice" meaning that after charges are brought but before the trial they often cannot be reported on. The police know that by leaking to the papers they will get the bad guy off, so by and large it works.
But information wants to be free.
So presumably in the case we're discussing, "jury selection" would have ruled out all but hermits who don't read or watch the news ?
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Re: So what CAN I google ?
For example, lets say that when "reading up" on the case and the type of crime allegedly committed that you read about a key piece of evidence, but that the judge had ruled in pre-trial hearings that the evidence had been excluded. Could you reasonably be expected to ignore that key piece of evidence, without knowing that the judge had already ruled on it and why? Could you trust that the newspaper provided a fair analysis/interpretation of what the evidence indicated and not a biased spin? And what if while researching the crime of insider trading you end up getting bad or outdated information on what actually is a crime and what isn't?
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Taint The Jurry Pool
But if you ever want to get out of jury duty for life, put on your questionnaire that you believe in jury nullification.
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Re: Taint The Jurry Pool
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Standard Procedure?
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Still it seems a strange thing to do.
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none of it makes any sense
Why shouldn't jurors be able to educate themselves as necessary in order to make intelligent informed decisions?
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Re: none of it makes any sense
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They want an ignorant jury so they can do this, so the jury doesn't catch them in a bald faced lie.
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jury instructions
As far as knowledge. THEY (well actually the Judge) wants to be the only person who provides you with any knowledge about anything you will use to make a decision. I was a juror on a money laundering case. Actually, I was the foreman. During deliberation I asked for a legal dictionary (don't recall what I wanted to look up. This was met with the jury coming back into the courtroom in front of the Judge and both lawyers. I described the terms we were having disagreements as to the meaning. They had the jury go back into the deliberation room. Three hours later sent in a piece of paper with the definitions stated the way the two lawyers and the Judge felt they should be stated.
When you are a Juror you are really treated like a mushroom. There is testimony you are not permitted to hear. There is evidence you are not permitted to see. There is information you are not permitted to have. There is knowledge they do not want you to posses. Often the judge is required to leave out information by statute (in my case, if found guilty there would be a forfeiture hearing that the jurors would attend).
A "knowledgable" or "well prepared" juror is a bad thing in the eyes of the courts and the lawyers.
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Absurdities of the Justice System
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And it's standard in IP cases, too
Since patent judges are (potentially) dealing with salt-of-the-earth, average-Joe jurors, there's no assumption that a jury will understand the technology behind the case. Not only are patent juries presented with the text of the patent's "claims", or descriptive features, but they have the claims "construed" for them by the judge, based on input - haggling, actually - from both parties in the case. For instance, one claim might reference "... a means whereby a rotary actuator engages a latching mechanism...", and the judge may say, "That means this little motor here, not that one over there."
Cumbersome and oblique, yes, but claim construction is probably necessary, in the same sense that criminal juries need sworn police testimony rather than hearsay and self-formed opinions based on a two-inch article in the local Daily Bugle.
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Not allowed to learn the truth
The only problem with Google results is that the evidence you gather is entirely dependent on the sources around the internet, which we all know is always 100% factual right? uh.... Ok maybe not. It can't be worse than the crap lawyers come up with though. Chances are the lawyers just Google their case these days anyway.
Research should be done, the juror had the right idea (in my opinion) about researching the company or product in question as opposed to listening exclusively the defense or prosecution lawyers... but unfortunately he used means that should not be considered factual. Why is it less factual than what the lawyers are paid to tell the jury? That much I can't even speculate on.
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And I'm not sure I'd want any jurors in a case where I'm a defendant to be making decisions where three of them went to Wikipedia and five more found something in the back page of a magazine that seemed relevant. To keep from losing control over the situation, they need to make sure jurors all have the same exposure to the same pool of information, and that none of them think that because they read something on a webpage someplace that that qualifies them to be a backseat driver to the judge or attorneys.
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There's a division of responsibility in a courtroom -- the JUDGE makes sure that all the procedures are followed and that no rules are broken, what we call justice.
The lawyers don't care -- they pursue conviction or acquittal. Period. It's their JOB to present the facts in a way that makes the defendant look as good or as bad as possible. And the judges know that, and the jurors better know, and the rules are written to take it into account. That's why judges will occasionally slap lawyers on the nose and call bullsh*t.
The jurors are the ones who balance what's said in the courtroom and come up with a decision. In order to do this, they have to be exposed to the same common collection of information. Calling bullsh*t on the lawyers or playing NCIS isn't their job.
This is just how a courtroom works. It's not perfect, in fact it's pretty off in a few places, but a huge part of justice is the pursuit of some form of consistency so personal biases don't come into play. Jurors do their job, the lawyers do their jobs, and the judge does theirs, in a way that prevents them from stepping on one another's toes as much as possible, or else you'd have chaos. Judgments being handed down in completely different fashions and according to individual whims and opinions in every case. How likely do you think justice would be in that situation?
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Names Before Trial
The list contained both the accused, as well as both alleged victims and witnesses.
I assumed this was a way to choose a Jury without conflict instead of having to ask about conflicts later in the process.
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