By Jedidiah McKeehan
Almost any question can be answered in seconds with a phone. That creates a serious problem during a jury trial because jurors are supposed to decide the case only from the evidence they hear in the courtroom. So what happens if a juror goes home and Googles the defendant, a witness, or the law?
Judges instruct jurors not to conduct independent research and not to post or communicate about the case on social media. A juror cannot look up a party’s criminal history, visit the scene using online maps, search for news stories, or read legal definitions that the judge did not provide.
The reason is fairness. Some evidence is kept away from a jury because it is unreliable, irrelevant, or unfairly prejudicial. Internet searches can put that excluded information directly in a juror’s hands, without either side having a chance to challenge it or explain the context.
Tennessee courts take this issue seriously. In State v. Smith, a juror used Facebook to communicate with a witness during a murder trial. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that when a judge receives reliable information about that kind of outside communication, the judge must investigate and make a record of what happened.
A mistrial or new trial is not automatic every time a juror touches a phone. The judge will want to know what the juror saw, whether it related to the case, whether the juror shared it with anyone else, and whether it could have affected the verdict. Depending on the answer, the juror may be removed and replaced with an alternate, the trial may continue, or the entire case may have to be tried again.
If a juror accidentally sees a headline or receives information about the case, the right response is not to investigate further or tell the other jurors. The juror should stop, notify the judge or bailiff, and let the court decide what to do. The same is true if one juror learns that another juror has been researching the case.
Jurors are not being told to turn off their common sense. They are being told to decide one specific case from one specific body of evidence. One careless Google search can expose information the jury was never supposed to see and can undo days, weeks, or even months of work.
Jedidiah McKeehan is an attorney practicing in Knox County and surrounding counties. He works in many areas, including divorce, custody, criminal, and personal injury. Visit attorney-knoxville.com for more information about this legal issue and other legal issues.
