Blogging Duty

It's no secret that computers make everything better. This is especially true if that thing is boring, like law school.

Another truism is that bloggers love to blog about boring things. In fact, the more boring the thing, the more bloggers love to blog about it in their blog. As evidence, I present every post that has preceded this one.

And what happens when you put both of the above premises together?

You got it!

Bloggers blogging about jury duty!

Can you feel the electricity in the air?

At first blush, it seems like a terrific idea. After all, the juror is more likely to pay attention in order to harvest blog fodder. If he doesn't remember a detail, looking at his blog might refresh his memory. And by not using names, specifics, or any other identifying characteristics, everyone's privacy is preserved, nobody talks about the case, and the integrity of the system is preserved, correct? All that and not being bored to tears while the state psychologist goes on and on about her post-graduate degrees and record of publications? Why, that's as terrific as sliced bread!

What could possibly go wrong?

To Professor Clark, Mr. Slutsky’s blog posts clearly “crossed the line.” Jurors are not allowed to talk to one another about the case, “much less go on the World Wide Web and discuss it with everybody,” he said.

OK. That's a fair point. We don't want to open up a message board where people fight about who goes first and whether or not the assault victim got "Pwned!" But if you actually think that jurors don't talk to one another about the case, you are only lying to yourself, you liar.

(Also, yes, that's actually the guy's name. Let's just get this over with. (Giggles for ten minutes))

However, if you actually read the posts involved in this story, you'll find that they only barely touch on the case at hand, mention no specifics, and refer almost exclusively to how boring being on a jury is. Which is absolutely true, despite what John Grisham would have you believe. So what irked off the professor?

Professor Clark pointed to one entry in particular that he said went too far. On Oct. 6, his ninth day of jury duty, Mr. Slutsky wrote about the plaintiff’s taking the stand for the second day. “It was really annoying when the witness got the same question over and over,” he wrote. “This is very annoying.” He added that much of the evidence “is not relevant to the jury’s ultimate decision of liability.”

This entry could have been especially problematic had the lawyers discovered the blog and tracked it, Professor Clark said. “If you’re an attorney and you’re reading this, you may go try to recover from that,” he said. “You may try to go back the next day to try to clear up something.”

Of course the lawyer would read a post about how annoying repetitive questioning was to everyone who hears it and would immediately make a motion to recall the witness, wait for him to come back, put him on the stand again, and ask him more questions. Because if they teach you anything in trial advocacy, it's that the more you ask the witness the same questions, the clearer his answers will be.

In judging the evidence, Mr. Slutsky may have been breaking the judge’s instructions to keep an open mind, Professor Clark said. “He’s actually kind of telling what he’s thinking, and the jury hasn’t even begun deliberating yet,” he said.

Oh, come on. Really? What do you think jurors are? Blank slates who only absorb information during the actual trial, collecting it in their subconscious, and hold off on flipping the mental switch to "Analyze" after the judge sequesters them for deliberation? You don't think they are prejudiced from the start based mostly on first impressions the instant the plaintiff and defendant show up with their body language and choice of clothes? You really think jurors don't judge every single thing during every moment of the trial where they actually pay attention? Are you actually a law professor?

“Maybe the law needs to be amended to accommodate blogs,” Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, wrote in an e-mail. “No doubt this sort of thing happened and happens a lot on a smaller scale (juror to friend, relative over dinner), and no one learns of it.” The instructions say not to discuss the case, but do not mention writing about the case.

Of course it happens on a smaller scale. Jurors talk about the case they're on all the time. Always have, always will. Everybody knows about it, but nobody cares because 99 percent of those conversations are exactly like this:

Mike: Yeah, so I had jury duty today.
Ike: Ugh.
Mike: I know.
Ike: That sucks
Mike: I know.
Ike: At least you got to skip work.
Mike: Yeah, that was nice.
Ike: Yup.
Mike: Yup.

And of course we end on the oldest lawyer trick in the book. "The instructions only said discuss. They never said anything about writing. Duh." Hey, I know copying on the test is forbidden, but I was just making sure we both had the same answers, Ms. Krabapple! What am I, on trial here?