The pervasiveness of social media - email, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life - and the ability of people to access data online through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing are having an impact on the conduct of jury trials. Lawyers and judges throughout the country are finding that the age old, simple admonition to jurors to not discuss a case when away from the courtroom just doesn't cut it in our information-saturated world.
In fact, a case here in Sacramento - involving a radio station stunt that resulted in the death of a woman who drank too much water - is believed to be the first in California requiring jurors to sign pledges stating that they will not go online to research topics related to the trial or communicate information to other people using electronic devices.
The concern in criminal trials, of course, is that, particularly for high profile cases, jurors might go online and access information that is incorrect or has been deemed inadmissible. A juror with that information would then come to deliberations with a different perspective on the trial than that of the other jurors.
One of the dangers, though, of banning the use of social media and search engines is that people will turn away even more than they do now from their civic duty of jury service. Judge Gary Randall of Nebraska, speaking today on the NPR program Talk of the Nation, made this point and argued that the drive to ensure that jurors consider only the information presented to them during trial must be balanced with the reality that more and more people are used to having continuous and instantaneous communication with friends and family. In other words, we need to make sure that we have an adequate pool of competent and motivated jurors.
This is only the beginning of the debate about how to resolve this issue. As we see more examples of jurors snapping photos of judges or Tweeting to friends while court is in session, or attorneys writing Facebook posts about their current trials, the judicial system will have to come up with rules that ensure that jurors come to deliberations only with the information presenting during trial and that they understand the vital role they play in the quest for justice.
"Revised Jury Instructions: Do Not Use the Internet," San Diego Union-Tribune, September 13, 2009
Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio, September 17, 2009
