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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Ind. Courts - More on: "Judges to jurors: Stay off the Web - New instructions mention Facebook, Twitter, MySpace"

Actually, the story quoted in this Feb. 15, 2010 ILB entry confused me because, as I wrote then, "This is the first the ILB has read of these new instructions, although they have been anticipated for some time.

This story by Aaron Organ in the Feb. 20, 2010 Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, headed "Limiting juries in an Internet age: A more Web-savvy update to the no-research rule is being reviewed," indicates to me that the earlier report may have jumped the gun.

From the News-Sentinel's thorough report:

Courthouse officials used to only have to worry about jurors getting outside information from face-to-face conversation and newspapers. In today's world of electronic tweets and status updates, 24-hour news and search engines, however, those officials are beginning to realize the quest for knowledge and yearning to share can play a negative role in judicial proceedings, and are forming steps to quell it before it grows unmanageable.

Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, who pulls double time as chairwoman of the jury committee of the Indiana Judicial Center, said issues have arisen outside state lines with jurors hungry for knowledge doing their own research while on breaks from trial – a breach of the general admonishment read to jurors by judges beforehand. When those jurors return, quenched with information not provided during the trial, well, that's how mistrials occur, costing taxpayers money, the attorneys time and their own dollars – and basically wasting the time of all involved.

“There's been an awful lot of cases where mistrials have been declared based on jurors conducting research and looking at things outside of court that they're not supposed to be looking at,” Gull said. “Back in the day when I was trying lawsuits, there wasn't an Internet, and the general admonishment to the jury at the conclusion of proceedings and at recess was adequate. Well, that's not the case anymore.”

Currently, Gull and other court judges will read an admonishment that instructs jurors not to talk with anyone about the case, and not to read about the case in a newspaper or watch any reports on television.

“Those were the only mediums we had to worry about,” Gull said. “Then came the Internet and Googling.”

Now, jurors can leave court for a break or for the evening, type a defendant's name into a search engine like Google, and up pops any number of results concerning the defendant's criminal history – history those trying the case want suppressed for a fair trial.

What's more, that juror could then access a social networking site like Twitter or Facebook and spread the word.

In some counties, and in other states, this issue can occur not just outside the courthouse, but inside its doors, for those courthouses that allow electronic devices. Allen County is safe in that regard, because it passed a ruling years ago that bans all electronic devices from the courthouse, but that does not extend beyond its walls.

The techie-juror issue – which technically could be prosecuted as a contempt of court felony – has now brought judicial changes.

Roughly two years ago, Gull said judges from around the state, sensing a growing concern for the sanctity of a jury, began elaborating on their general admonishments to include the banning of Internet research. Eventually, the issue became so widespread that those judges gathered and brought the issue before the Indiana Judicial Center's jury committee, asking for a standardized instruction or broader and standard admonition.

The committee came up with an admonition, and subsequently referred it to the Indiana Judges Association, where, on Jan. 15, Gull presented to the board of directors a request to approve it. The board did, and the revised, standardized and expanded admonition is currently en route to the rules committee for review and approval.

The new admonition will include rules saying, essentially, that until a juror's service is complete, the use of computers, laptops, phones or electronic communication is prohibited, be it in attendance at trial, or during breaks or deliberations.

Gull hopes it first gets passed, but then that the new method ushers in protections.

“We don't want to go through a month of trial and have to blast it out of the water because a juror did some Internet research,” said Gull. “It used to be enough to tell them not to read the paper or watch the news. Now, because we have gotten to be such a ‘I demand access to everything and I want to know everything about everything'-type of society, we need to be specifically instructing jurors not to talk to anybody and don't post information, text or e-mail. Don't get on Internet chat rooms, blogs or social Web sites and discuss this case.”

But what's the big deal, anyhow? Gull said she's asked that same question quite a bit by jurors. It's a matter of limiting the information jurors receive to what comes from inside the courtroom.

“Jurors ask ‘why not' all the time,” Gull said. “You may find out this person (on trial) has 15 major felony convictions. Would that have made a difference to you in your deliberations? Of course.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 21, 2010 09:25 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts