March 17, 2009
| Democracy As An Information Technology >>
Twelve Angry iPhones
Pretty sure this is what you call a conceptual scoop:
The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.Last week, a building products company asked an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment against it after a juror used Twitter to send updates during the civil trial.
Suuuper interesting. Great work by John Schwartz and the NYT.
Posted March 17, 2009 at 3:26 | Comments (4) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Snarkpolicy, Snarkpolitik, Society/Culture
File under: Briefly Noted, Snarkpolicy, Snarkpolitik, Society/Culture
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In this case, the NYT's crackerjack research consisted of two amazing steps.
1) Read Monday's Philadelphia Daily News.
2) Do a Lexis-Nexis search for similar stories.
Voil
Well played... well played :-)
Admittedly, I'm at an advantage -- the Vince Fumo story is HUGE here, so the story of the juror updating his Facebook status (and Fumo's lawyers seeking a mistrial for it) was likewise huge. Huge enough, I think, to be noticed at the Times.
I don't mean to belittle this insight -- sometimes it is a BIG idea to say "this is a trend, and this says something interesting about our changing world" -- not getting lost in the details of the case, which the Daily News article I linked to above does.
The last time I was called for Jury Duty I got out of it, but it was physically painful not to Google the case on my phone. Perhaps I didn't resist... I think they're going to have to change the rules eventually.