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Blogging Juror Bruce Slutsky Stirs Controversy in New York Court

by Amar Toor on October 19, 2010 at 02:00 PM

screencap of slutsky's blogBruce Slutsky, a 61-year-old from Flushing, NY was recently called to jury duty to hear a civil case, which involved a plaintiff filing assault charges against his neighbors. Unlike most jurors, however, Slutsky decided to document his courtroom experience on his blog. And, although the Queens, NY court ultimately determined that Slutsky's online actions didn't pose a threat to the trial's legitimacy, his blog has certainly sparked a legal debate over how to regulate juror discretion in the age of digital openness.

Slutsky began blogging on September 16, the first day he spent in the courtroom. By the second day, he'd already begun divulging details about the judicial process, and complained about the lengthy and often dull legal protocol. His blog went largely unnoticed, until John Clark, a law professor at the University of Texas at Tyler, stumbled upon it, and immediately alerted the court. The judge and lawyers involved in the case subsequently questioned Slutsky, but determined that his blog posts didn't provide sufficient reason for his dismissal as the jury's foreman.

Professor Clark, however, is none too pleased with the court's opinion on the blog posts, which he says "clearly crossed the line." Jurors, Clark tells the New York Times, are forbidden to discuss the case with each other, "much less go on the World Wide Web and discuss it with everybody," Because he revealed judgments on the evidence, moreover, Slutsky may have violated the judge's order to keep an open mind. "He's actually kind of telling what he's thinking, and the jury hasn't even begun deliberating yet," Clark argues.

Slutsky, on the other hand, insists that his blog was completely innocuous, and that he viewed it primarily as a personal diary. "I didn't do anything wrong," says Slutsky. "I didn't blog about the actual case, just about the jury process. I specifically said in my blog that I'm not allowed to talk about the case."

The presiding judge apparently agreed, and, from a practical perspective, that's all that really matters. One could easily envision a scenario, however, in which a rogue juror could use the Internet to reveal much more damaging information than what Slutsky disclosed. Whether it's blogs, iPhone apps or Facebook, the online culture of oversharing has clearly created an entirely new gray area for jurors, judges and lawyers to negotiate.

Tags: assault, Blog, blogging, bruce slutsky, BruceSlutsky, controversy, juror, jury, law, legal, new york, NewYork, top, web

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