When jurors and the Internet connect-mistrials may result

An interesting article appeared in the Washington Post which
detailed the problems that judges are having with jurors who
turn to the Internet for information .

One juror would did not understand the term "lividity" and how it
related to the victim's death, looked up the meaning on Wikipedia.
The case was thrown out and another trial ordered as a result of the
appeal's court learning what had happened.

This raises an interesting question. Why if jurors are to weigh the
evidence presented in the courtroom should they be prohibited from
using a dictionary to get a word's definition? Smartphones, laptops,
netbooks, and desktops are now a ubiquitous part of today's society.

It makes sense to instruct jurors not to post about the case on Facebook,
or Twitter or MySpace since they have long been instructed not to
discuss the case outside of the deliberation room.

You cannot compare the knowledge base of today's jurors with those
at the time of the original jury trials in the colonies. Early jurors knew
the victims and the accused and obviously brought that knowledge
into discussions with other jurors.

Experts spout statistics, but jurors may or may not know what the
numbers mean in terms of the likelihood of something matching or
occurring.

It is time to consider the knowledge that should be given to the jury
and end the "which lawyer spins the best tale" basis for a
conviction. Whether it is knowledge from "Law and Order" or "CSI,"
today's juror does not enter the courthouse with a blank screen for
a mind.

We claim that critical thinking and analysis are important concepts for
students to master. This cannot occur in a vacuum; one takes everything
heard from witnesses and viewed in exhibits to reach conclusions. These
conclusions have been influenced by our own past experiences.

"I knew who had committed the crime because of the ring." What ring?
The ring left in a tub after washing out dirty items? The ring where
boxers compete? The ring on a female's left hand? The ring of a cellphone?
etc? there are many, many different meaning of this one word. For the
testimony to be valuable, we need to know which definition of the word is
used.

The time has come to either only allow bench trials where judges may
look up information or revisit the type of information that is given to
a jury. Intelligent people want to know -- if I am on trial, I want an
intelligent jury, don't you?