SACRAMENTO — For years, state judges have struggled with how to handle jurors who just cannot stay away from Twitter, Facebook and Google while performing their civic duty. Despite admonitions from officials, there are regular media reports of jury pools being excused or cases being appealed because someone couldn’t resist blogging about courtroom action or looking up news about a defendant.
In 2011, the governor signed Judicial Council-backed legislation clarifying that judges have the authority to hold in contempt jurors who ignore judge’s warnings and research cases online or post details about an ongoing case. In 2014, judges asked the Legislature to repeal the law. It seems the misdemeanor threat to wayward jurors caused some unanticipated constitutional quandaries. Judges who wanted to investigate accusations of juror misconduct had to be mindful of that juror’s right not to self-incriminate. Prosecutors could offer jurors immunity, but that had the potential to give one party in an ongoing case the appearance of unfair leverage.
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