Websurfing Jurors

According to a report in the New York Times, a mistrial was declared after eight weeks of trial when the judge discovered that nine of the jurors had been using the Internet to research the case. Despite explicit instructions forbidding outside research, increasingly jurors are using the Internet to find Google maps of intersections where accidents happened, to research patent information on Wikipedia, and to check out lawyers and parties. As law professor Olin Wellborn explained, the rules of evidence have been refined over centuries make sure that the evidence presented in court has been scrutinized and challenged by both sides. This scrutiny is designed to insure that the evidence is reliable and that the trial is fair. As Professor Wellborn observed, "You lose all that when the jurors go out on their own."