Juror's Tweets Overturn Trial Verdict 423
D H NG writes "The Arkansas Supreme Court had overturned a murder conviction due to a juror tweeting during the trial. Erickson Dimas-Martinez was convicted in 2010 of killing a teenager and was sentenced to death. His lawyers appealed the case on account of a juror tweeting his musings during the trial and because another juror nodded off during the presentation of evidence. Tweets sent include 'The coffee here sucks' and 'Court. Day 5. here we go again.' In an opinion, Associate Justice Donald Corbin wrote 'because of the very nature of Twitter as an... online social media site, Juror 2's tweets about the trial were very much public discussions.' Dimas-Martinez is to be given a new trial."
Re:Uh oh. (Score:5, Informative)
Please be sure to read up on the concept of jury nullification before you go. You have more power in the jury box than any other individual in the justice system.
Re:Need a new law (Score:2, Informative)
Sure - Just as soon as jury duty becomes purely voluntary (and don't give me "then just don't register to vote"), or at the very least, easily deferrable to any convenient time within the next year or so once notified. What we have now amounts to nothing short of indentured servitude if you want to actually exercise your right to vote. At any time, they can call you in and unless you have a damned good reason, you can find the next few weeks of your life suddenly unavailable to you (and Zeus help you if you actually get called for any sort of high-profile capital case, unless you like the thought of effectively living in solitary confinement for six months).
YAWN (Score:5, Informative)
Read the full opinion. The trial decision was reversed and remanded for many reasons, only one of which was juror misconduct. The juror misconduct charge came about from the juror not following the judge's direction not to use social media. The judge actually determined that the tweets did not harm the defendant.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:4, Informative)
"It is not only his [the juror's] right, but his duty . . . to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.--John Adams
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."--John Jay (Joint-author of the Federalist Papers and first U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice)
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."--Thomas Jefferson
Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction...if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong.--Alexander Hamilton, 1804
"....it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact."--Thomas Jefferson
Re:Uh oh. (Score:4, Informative)
Know what they got Al Capone for? Tax evasion.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:3, Informative)
OTOH you had southern juries who'd refuse to convict people of murdering blacks back in the bad old days.
Things are never as simple as Internet Libertarians think they are.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:4, Informative)
Dealers and violence go hand in hand.
That wasn't true when you could buy heroin in drug stores [dedleg.com]. Why do you suppose it's true now that you can't?
Re:Uh oh. (Score:5, Informative)
What you describe is a mistrial, not an example of jury nullification.
Jury nullification is when a jury refuses to pass a guilty verdict, despite the law. It's the jury judging the law, rather than the defendant. Jury nullification is the last defence against an unjust law.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:5, Informative)
Jury nulification means finding the defendant innocent regardless of the evidence against them. This is something jurors have a constitutional right to do. If you don't think the act the defendant was charged with should be against the law, you can find them not innocent even if it is absolutely obvious they did it.
It's not a constitutional right, it's a consequence of a practice that derives from common law. Basically, the issue is that juries must be free from intimidation to present their verdict, and that the possibility that they will reach a verdict not in concurrence with law is a possibility that we live with. It's much the same as the notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty: it's not some fundamental right, it's just a compromise we make because our legal system is naturally imperfect.
The only operative rights here are the defendant's right to due process, and the right of the people to have their elected representatives draft the laws they live by and of the courts and police to execute those laws faithfully. As a juror, being drafted into judicial service, you don't have any right whatsoever to unilaterally overturn those laws, instead, you have the *power* to do so without repercussions. You are violating the trust society put in you, and you're really not any better than a crooked cop.
tl;dr: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Re:Why are Juror's even allowed to have their phon (Score:4, Informative)
Have you ever been on jury duty? I was on a case that ran for a week. For about 80% of the time, we weren't in the courtroom - the lawyers were arguing about legal technicalities that the jury wasn't allowed to hear before the judge ruled who was right. On a number of days, we came in, went into the court for its opening, went straight to the jury room, and stayed there for the entire day, returning to the court only for its close at the end of the day. It was even a fairly open and shut case as far as the jury was concerned. And it was bloody boring. If I hadn't had some sort of way to pass the time, I would have gone bonkers. As it was, I brought a book. These days, since I tend to read ebooks on my phone, I would not be impressed if they took it away and made me sit and stare at a wall all day.
Re:Uh oh. (Score:4, Informative)
Jury nullification is only good for overturning specific unjust laws, not for reversing the course of the entire nation.
Jury nullification doesn't overturn the unjust law, if successful, it just prevents the unjust law's penalty from taking effect against that specific defendant in that specific case where the jury decided the law was unjust and found innocent on the basis of law.
If the person does it again and gets arrested again, they could still be tried and convicted by a different jury, in the very same jurisdiction, for violating the very same unjust law.
Their exoneration by jury nullification once doesn't change the law, or protect anyone else.
There's no strong likelihood that jury nullification over the same injustice will be repeated consistently.