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Jurors Taint Court Case With Incessant Internet Searches

by Warren Riddle on March 22, 2009 at 01:15 PM



Earlier this week, an Arkansas juror potentially jeopardized a judge's ruling by sending tweets from the courtroom, and in Pennsylvania, another juror created rumblings of a mistrial by twittering and posting Facebook updates during the trial. We think this must be a trend, because we've just come across this New York Times story about an incident in Florida involving, not one, but nine of the jurors on the case.

In the recent Florida fiasco, after one juror admitted violating courtroom procedure by searching for pertinent trial information on the Web, Judge William J. Zloch queried the remainder of the jurors and was shocked to hear that eight other members had conducted their own outside research. The impertinent jurors forced Zloch to declare a mistrial after eight weeks of trial, wasting time and money in a move that must certainly thrill Florida taxpayers.

Defense lawyer Peter Raben told the New York Times, "We were stunned. It was the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.

What's next, a judge determining his ruling by posting a Facebook poll?

Because of these recent mishaps, it seems a complete ban of cell phones and other mobile gadgets in courtrooms could be in order, and municipalities may need to look into hiring full-time jury system administrators to monitor the ramblings and other Internet activities of jurors. Since our knowledge of trial etiquette is limited to "keep your mouth shut and let the lawyer do the talking," we'll defer further explanation to the original author, and his estimable courtroom expertise. [From: NY Times]

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Tags: court, crime and punishment, CrimeAndPunishment, facebook, jury duty, jury trials, JuryDuty, JuryTrials, law, mistrial, twitter

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