Los Angeles, CA—When an American jury is empaneled they are
admonished to avoid all print, broadcast or Internet related materials
involving the case they are deciding. Do
they follow the rules when the juicy gossip is only a few mouse clicks away? The answer is NO!
Before I indict all jurors let me suggest that a small
percentage do obey the instructions. Perhaps
it is only because they are not computer literate. The rest are a bunch of undisciplined folks
that do what they damn well please.
It is apparent that our jurors allow themselves to become
influenced by illicit outside information.
My blog gave me a real window into a jury in action on a
Hollywood Attempted Murder case that began in December of 2005. Alexander Terminassian shot and wounded an
assailant, Marco C. Fuentes. I remain
convinced that the charges should have never been filed! It was a clear act of self-defense.
I was outraged by the excessive bail and felony charges for
Terminassian, a cab driver. I doubted
that he get a fair trial because of the gun rights debate and the extreme La La
Land prejudice against guns and lawful self-defense.
I was convinced that jurors would never learn about the criminal
record or illegal alien status of Terminassian’s attacker in the
courtroom. I conducted my own background
investigation on the state’s star witness and so-called victim. I posted the results verbatim on my blog
direct from L.A. County court records.
The theory is that the jury would never see that material
but I was convinced at least a few may Google the names involved and learn the
truth.
I have a web counter on my blog that tells me the Internet
service provider’s number and domain. It
shows how they found my articles along with the search terms. It also give
approximate locations of the visitors along with the amount of time they
spend.
I use my web counter to see what my visitors are interested
in and look to exploit the information to increase my blog traffic.
The Terminassian story was popular in the L.A. region and
among gun rights groups. But after a few
months of the incident there were very few visits to that story.
Fastfoward to 12 months later in 2006 and I noticed a small
cluster of hits on the Terminassian stories from the L.A. area. Why the sudden interest I wondered? Something was going on! Perhaps a news article provoked the
attention? Googling the unusual name
Terminassian only generated my stories. I
kept digging.
There were exactly 14 hits and I saved a screen shot
capturing the ISP numbers. I
investigated the reason for the hits and discovered that Terminassian’s trial
had begun and they just picked a jury of 12 with two alternates! Could the newly empaneled jury be breaking
the rules by doing Google searches?
For the next couple of weeks the same blog visitors returned
again and again! Somewhere between three
and 10 hits from the same ISP numbers.
Suddenly I got a comment from a man that claimed to be a juror on that
case. I checked his ISP and discovered
he had been on my blog continually from the first day the jury was picked.
I asked that he contact me and he did by e-mail and
phone. He told me he was the foreman of
the jury and that he was surprised to learn about Fuentes’ background on my
blog. He pretended to not have seen it
until after the case was over. I played
along with his game and did not snitch, until now. Of course the Statute of Limitations now
prevents any punitive action against him over his transgressions.
After the trial the traffic stopped on my Terminassian
stories.
What I’m suggesting is that the Internet has proven to be a
real game changer in American Justice.
Today juries must be sequestered if they are to be shielded from outside
influence. Because of search engines like Google insignificant web sites can influence juries and their verdicts even more than traditional media outlets.
Judges are going to hate dealing with this issue and
sequestering every jury would shut the entire system down in gridlock. The cost of transportation, meals and hotels
would be staggering to taxpayers. What
is the solution?
Below is a link to the stories and be sure to read the
comments.
Comments
Seeing how often judges and prosecutors exclude information (often critical) from the record, IMO a juror is acting irresponsibly if they blindly accept court testimony as "the whole truth and nothing but."
I agree. Court sometimes is nothing but a word game. Vital information is routinely withheld based on some objection by one of the attorneys. Is the criminal history showing numerous sex offenses of an offender who is charged with rape somehow not relevant? I don't think so. After being a cop for a few years I soon realized that court is not a place where justice is served.