Today’s idiot
Australian Justice Virginia Bell:
Justice Virginia Bell, of the NSW Supreme Court, has called for the internet to be purged of any material likely to prejudice a trial in order to prevent jurors conducting their own investigations into cases on which they are sitting, according to The Australian.
The judge made the proposal at a conference of Supreme and Federal court judges from across Australia, but there were apparently few takers.
Independent research by jurors is already illegal in Australia.
Well, let’s just type del *.* on the whole Internet. Why is it a bad thing for jurors to do their own, you know, thinking anyway?
January 28th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Ever been on a jury? You aren’t allowed to read newspaper or listen the radio or television coverage of the trial. And if you had read information about the case before the trial you stand a good chance of not being allowed on the trial. And you aren’t even allowed to look up the law the defendant is being tried for. The Judge, in conference with the lawyers for both sides, will explain the law to you.
There are good and bad things about the “way things are”. It’s good that if there was a search ruled illegal or a confession that was achieved via torture and confirmed via other evidence or something like that the jury won’t know about it. On the other hand a judge with an agenda can dramatically bias the information you have access to in deciding the case.