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Monday, October 11, 2010
Courts - "Facebooking in Court: Coping With Socially Networked Jurors"
Check out the Law.com article by Harry A. Valetk here. A useful article, it concludes:
[E]nforcing court rules on the way jurors behave during trial goes beyond what formal jury instructions can do. Trial judges, counsel and even fellow jurors have a role to play. Here are a few suggestions that lawyers should consider incorporating into modern-day trial practice:Probe jurors during voir dire on Facebook and Twitter use. Establish frequency of use and a juror's ability to refrain from using social networking tools during trial.
Monitor juror Facebook and Twitter activity during trial. Tools like Social Mention allow you to search blogs, microblogs, networks, videos and much more. This engine also allows you to create alerts for your search terms that you can have e-mailed to you daily.
Ask the trial judge to remind jurors that they may come forward to report a fellow juror's misconduct. The judge should also remind jurors about the fines and other potential consequences for failing to follow the court's ban on communicating with others about the case.
Warn jurors before and after every jury break about the court's ban on communicating with others about the case during trial, including the use of Facebook, Twitter and other web-based tools.
Explain the logic behind the presumption of juror prejudice. Jurors today may be more receptive to complying with court-ordered bans on communicating with others during trial if they understand the logic behind the ban.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 11, 2010 10:43 AM
Posted to Courts in general