A survey of jurors from 15 trialshas found that jurors generally understand instructions not to use the Internet or social media to research or communicate about trials, but also that many jurors wish they could use technology to do some sort of research about the cases they sat on. Very few, however, reported that they had violated admonishments not to research or discuss the case withothers prior to deliberations, and all of these involved pre-deliberation discussions with either fellow jurors or family members. None involved the internet or social media.
The study was a prelimary examination conducted by the National Center for State Courts for the
Executive Session for State Court Leaders in the 21st Century, a three-year series of meetings of court leaders from around the country sponsored by
Bureau of Justice Assistance, the
State Justice Institute, and the
National Center for State Courts, and held at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
The studyquestioned impaneled jurors from six criminal and nine civil trials, as well as jurors from the voir dire phase (i.e., including those both ultimately chosen toserve on the jury and those that were not) of these trials plus an additional seven civil cases that settled during jury selection. In all the cases, the jurors were instructed during voir dire and trial not to use the internet or social media to research or communicate aboutthe case. The majority of jurors reported in the survey that they understood these admonitions. Among prospective jurors, 87 percent understood that they should not use the internet or social media to communicate with friends or family or to post information about the case, and two-thirds said that researching the case online would violate the judges' instructions. But that did not mean that they did not want to. Significant percentagesof prospective jurors said they wished they could use the internet to research legal terms (44 percent), the case itself (26 percent), the parties (23 percent), the lawyers (20 percent), the judge (19 percent), the witnesses (18 percent), and fellow jurors (7 percent). Eight percent wanted to be able to e-mail family and friends about the case, five percent wanted to connect with a fellow juror online, and three percent wanted to connect with another trial participant. Three percent each wanted to be able to tweet or blog about the trial, and twopercent wanted to post something about the trial on a social networkingsite. The numbers for seated jurors and alternates were smaller, but still significant. The study founded that 29 percent of seated jurors and alternates wanted to "use the Internet ... for ex-parte communications," and that 28 percent wished they could use it for case-related research. Understanding the judges' admonitions against internet use also did not mean that some jurors would not be tempted. While 86 percent of perspective jurors said they could refrain from internet use during trial, 14 percent said they likely could not. The study's authors speculate that as more "digital natives" -- younger people who are more familiar with frequent internet usage -- join the jury pool, the latter figure is likely to rise. But the study found that none of the jurors tempted to use the internet reported that they did so. The study did find, however, than 10 percent of jurors and alternates admitted to discussing the case with fellow jurors prior to deliberations, and six percent admitted to discussing the case -- the old fashioned way, either in person or by phone -- with family and/or friends during trial. But only four of the 16 jurors who admitted to such discussions reported that these discussions helped themunderstand evidence in the cases. Despite these findings that no jurors in the study had acted improperly online, more than half of the 15 judges surveyed as part of the study ranked juror use of the internet to research or discuss cases as an important concern, rating it either a 4 or 5 on an escalating scale of one to seven. The authors note that this was