Social Media: The Jury and a Fair Trial

"The courts need to find the appropriate balance between protecting the administration of justice and respecting jurors’ privacy, personal rights and freedom of information, as well as ensuring that members of the public are not dissuaded from participating in a vital part of the justice system [namely, juries]" . . .  or so concludes an article posted to the website The Conversation, a very interesting report on the difficult scenario now being created for our legal system by the widely available easy to connect to phenomena known as social media.

As the article points out there are over 12 million active Facebook accounts in Australia alone and more than two million Twitter and four million LinkedIn accounts making social media the most pervasive phenomena since religion and one that will need to be comprhended if the existing system of justice is to function as intended.

The Conversation suggests over 45,000 Australians perform jury service in a year making it highly likely that many jurors will be active participants online and be part of extensive social networks having several ways as jurors they could use social media "inappropriately".

Some are for example:

• Publish or distribute information about the trial;

• Acquire information about a case from sources outside of the court; and

• Contact parties, witnesses, lawyers or the judge in the trial; and discuss the merits of the case or seek opinions from other people.

All of the above affect the key legal principal of the "defendant’s right to a fair trial and confidence in the administration of justice". However, in addition there are cost implications which are significant; in its article The Converstaion says that: "it is estimated that there were in excess of 4300 jury trials in Australia in 2011-12, and based on costs in NSW, the national cost of jury trials would be over A$240 million".

In terms of what can be done the Standing Council on Law and Justice in its report Juries and Social Media prepared for the Victorian Department of Justice has recommended the following as possible measures:

• "Don't research" jury directions - direction specifically addressing the use of social media by jurors;

• More research into the nature of Juries, the undertaking of formal research to determine what form of written guidelines relating to social media are most comprehensible to jurors; and

• Jury training - perhaps in thee form of a brief pre-trial training module.

Sources:

• Jurors and social media: is there a solution? (The Conversation)

• SCLJ report Juries and Social Media prepared for the Victorian Department of Justice

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