Lawyers Doing Real Time Jury Googling

from the not-for-judges-and-juries... dept

Fri, Jul 9th 2010 3:57pm — Mike Masnick

There have been questions lately about whether or not it makes sense for jurors and judges to use Google in the court of a trial, but what about lawyers? Obviously, they can use Google in general, but what about in court to do instant Google background checks on potential jurors. That ABA Journal article notes that lawyers are increasingly making use of the tools to learn about jurors as quickly as possible:

"Last month I had 50 jurors, and as the court clerk read out the names, I had two people in the courtroom and a third person back at the office, with all three of them doing research," says Kiesel, a partner with Kiesel, Boucher & Larson. Junior lawyers also assisted, and Kiesel estimates the social media research for that case cost less than $5,000.

Apparently, in that case, the Google searches turned up some relevant points that caused a juror they otherwise would have accepted to get rejected. However, the article notes that jurors might get creeped out knowing that lawyers were immediately checking them out on Google, and wonders if judges may crack down on the practice (the lawyer quoted in the article insists that there would be no legal basis for a crackdown...). I can't see why it's really a problem. It's not really a privacy issue since they're looking up public information. Either way, it's yet another example of how basic search technology is showing up in the courtroom more and more, even if the courts aren't fully ready for it...

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Filed Under: court, juries, lawyers
Companies: google

25 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:12pm

Obvious Converse
Have any potential jurors 'googled' attorneys, judges, plaintiffs and defendants while waiting to be questioned?
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- Mark Rosch, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:53pm
  
  Re: Obvious Converse
  They do it all the time...and with increasing frequency.
  
  The kind of research these lawyers are doing is just the tip of the iceberg of what we discuss in our book "Find Info Like a Pro" - published by the ABA. http://bit.ly/9ixlQ3
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:27pm

Now we all know how to get out of jury duty. Just put pages up that you support both jury nullifcation (that's get the prosecutors to disqualify you) and how you don't believe in any of the foreign-zic crap (who would trust something that's foreign?) and that'll get the defense to drop you.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:30pm

a few more lightweight posts, and that nasty kenya pirate party story will disappear off page 1. got for it mike.

happy friday everyone.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:39pm
  
  Re:
  a few more lightweight posts, and that nasty kenya pirate party story will disappear off page 1. got for it mike.
  
  Nothing lightweight about it, and not trying to make that post disappear. There's nothing wrong with it, as I explained in the comments. Your desire to make a mountain out of absolutely nothing is amusing, but ridiculous.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:40pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "Your desire to make a mountain out of absolutely nothing is amusing, but ridiculous." - would you prefer i say "we have already shown that mike is trying to hide something" and point at the post? your own modus operandi back at ya!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Seriously, lay off the crack. Those voices in your head aren't ghosts, they're delusions. You don't need to call that ghost buster, just stop taking crack.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 5:11pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        i dont do crack, and i have no chance to because you have already used it all up. go away paid troll.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:07pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Well, which drug causes constant absurd paranoia, TAM?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        vivaelamor (profile), 10 Jul 2010 @ 4:48pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "Well, which drug causes constant absurd paranoia, TAM?"
        
        To some people, it would seem, oxygen.
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- Ron Rezendes (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:40pm
  
  On trolls and their uselessness....
  When one lives under a rock the whole world is but a stone's throw away. ~Rezendes 07/09/2010
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- Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:40pm
  
  Re:
  Perhaps that voice in your head is a ghost? Maybe you should call that ghost buster or his indistinguishable twin.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:33pm

I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names and they were either deceased or entangled in some stuff.

I thought it was weird, and wish I would have taken a screenshot.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:34pm

I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names, and checked their facebook profiles. They were either recently deceased or entangled in some stuff.

I thought it was weird, and wish I would have taken a few screenshots.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:34pm

I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names, and checked their facebook profiles. They were either recently deceased or entangled in some stuff.

I thought it was weird, and wish I would have taken a few screenshots.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:35pm

I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names, and checked their facebook profiles. They were either recently deceased or entangled in some stuff.

I thought it was weird, and wish I would have taken a few screenshots.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:35pm

I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names, and checked their facebook profiles. They were either recently deceased or entangled in some stuff.

I thought it was weird, and wish I would have taken a few screenshots.

Ooops. here it is--
http://denver.craigslist.org/etc/1798482259.html
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 4:55pm

Realtime? What about doing a mock jury before the filing?
I ran into something similar to this a few weeks ago where I found a law firm was soliciting input for a "Focus Group" on Craigslist. They asked if they knew anyone out of a group of six or seven names, if you were currently subpoenaed for jury duty, and your pay would be $50 per day. I google'd a few of the names, and checked their facebook profiles. They were either recently deceased or other stuff.

So I guess, if they mounted a case, and could demographically figure out how people would find the defendant ahead of time, they may be able to stack the jury in their favor.

The ad is still up:
http://denver.craigslist.org/etc/1798482259.html
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- nasch (profile), 12 Jul 2010 @ 1:02pm
  
  Re: Realtime? What about doing a mock jury before the filing?
  Weird, did you run into that six times?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 5:19pm

Realtime? What about doing a mock jury before the filing?
Found a few more. Apparently this happens a lot.

This one says "DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION IS REQUESTED SO THAT WE MAY CONSTRUCT JURIES COMPARABLE TO THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF A TYPICAL MISSISSIPPI COUNTY JURY." emphasis not mine.

http://jonesboro.craigslist.org/etc/1780771387.html

http://memphis.craigslist.org/csr/ 1770195618.html
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/etc/1810862973.html
http://portland.craigslist.o rg/yam/etc/1833915520.html
http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/etc/1805409207.html
http://newyork.cra igslist.org/mnh/etc/1831800526.html
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- Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2010 @ 3:24pm
  
  Re: Realtime? What about doing a mock jury before the filing?
  I think that's part of the problem with trying to pick a jury based on a typical citizen. If you pick them out of a hat you're going to have outliers on various issues since there are so many issues that people disagree with or are unaware of. If you try to statistically control for them the statistical control has to figure out how everyone's general positions on various issues affect how they're going to rule on specific cases and they have to try and determine people's true opinions on issues. Problems with that include people are often undecided, they frequently change their minds on various issues and are more confused than anything, and sometimes people lie to either get out of jury duty or to weigh in on particular cases because they want their opinion imposed on others. Both of these potentially skew the outcome because people who do either of these activities will tend to have a different opinion set than those who don't since most people don't hold many opinions independently of all other opinions. ie: if your opinion is that religion X is true then you tend to hold other opinions similar to others who hold religion X. You can try to statistically correct for these factors but one problem for this is that by the time you gather enough data to do so the opinion demographics would change making some of your old data obsolete. and you also have to trust the motives of those doing the data collection and analysis and you have to trust their methodologies as well.
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NullOp, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:15pm

Likewise...
Likewise we should be background checking the lawyers, especially if you're considering hiring one. What goes around comes around, Mr. Solicitor.
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Janey, 10 Jul 2010 @ 11:01am

Yes because we all know that nobody on earth has the same name and everything on Google is sooooooo accurate all of the time. Lame.
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DanVan (profile), 10 Jul 2010 @ 1:01pm

Eh, some of that could be private information that is not supposed to be public

Does seem a bit intrusive, imo
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Ed C., 12 Jul 2010 @ 2:32am

The last time I checked my name on Google, it said that some guy with my name is wanted in state that I've never lived in! Since there was no photo, you just know that idiots that try to Google me will think I'm a criminal. Great for getting out of jury duty, BAD for getting a job! (HR people usually rank fairly high that list of idiots...)
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