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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Ind. Courts - Vanderburgh Circuit Court juror admonished for Facebook entry during trial

The ILB has had a number of entries relating to "Managing the electronic communication revolution in the Indiana courtroom."

Today Lydia X. McCoy reports in the Evansville Courier & Press:

A juror in the Joaquin Starks' trial was admonished Friday morning after the court discovered he had posted "jury duty; day one complete" on his Facebook page.

Starks was charged in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ida Jefferson. Jefferson was found shot in the head outside Ross Center Apartments on Feb. 29, 2008.

Starks was found guilty of murder late Friday.

Jurors are not supposed to discuss the case with anyone except other jurors, do any type of research on the case or read any news reports about the case during a trial.

During a hearing outside of the rest of the jury, the juror, Daniel Krueger, told the court what he had posted and that he received two comments from acquaintances. The first said, "Guilty, next" and the other was from someone talking about their experience serving on a jury.

When asked by [Vanderburgh Circuit Court] Magistrate Kelli Fink, who is presiding in the case, whether he had received any other information about the case outside of evidence presented at trial, Krueger said he had not and that he could continue to remain impartial when making his decision.

Krueger said after receiving a call from the court Thursday stating not to go on the page, he deleted the post and has remained off the site.

Despite objections from Starks' attorney, Chris Lenn, Krueger was allowed to remain on the jury, but he was ordered to not discuss the incident with the other jurors.

In his objection, Lenn said it was important to know what actually was said and posted on the site. He also wanted to subpoena Facebook for all the postings to Krueger's page since he had received his jury notice.

"There is not to be jury communication outside of this case," Lenn said.

"I believe my client has a right to see that. I move for a mistrial because he might have been independently tainted by improper communication on Facebook."

Fink said they had placed Krueger under oath and asked him about the postings.

His posting "was very limited, and I think an innocent posting," she said. "We're in an area of law that hasn't been dealt with yet."

The ILB reported in late July that "an Indiana Supreme Court committee took up the issue of banning iPhones, cell phones, laptops, social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook, by jurors while they are deliberating a case."

However, the ILB has heard nothing more, except for a paragraph by Anita Ramasastry in a Findlaw column, reported in this August 15th ILB entry:

Currently, too, an Indiana judicial panel is investigating what can be done about the problem. Last week, the Indiana Judicial Conference's jury committee assigned staff to draft a rule setting uniform limits on jurors' use of electronic devices during deliberations. The rule is scheduled to be presented to the Conference in October.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 11, 2009 01:17 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts