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Appeals Court Rules Counsel May 'Google' Potential Jurors During Jury Selection

By Bruce Carton

Evan Brown's Internet Cases blog flagged an interesting case over the weekend coming out of Morris County, N.J. Brown writes that the courthouse in that county provides wireless internet access, and during jury selection, plaintiffs counsel in a medical malpractice case began using his laptop to "Google" potential jurors to gain additional information about them. This led to the following exchange between the judge and the Googling counsel: THE COURT: Are you Googling these [potential jurors]? [PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL]: Your Honor, there?s no code law that says I?m not allowed to do that. I-any courtroom- THE COURT: Is that what you?re doing? [PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL]: I?m getting information on jurors-we?ve done it all the time, everyone does it. It?s not unusual. It?s not. There?s no rule, no case or any suggestion in any case that says- ?. THE COURT: No, no, here is the rule. The rule is it?s my courtroom and I control it. The judge then prohibited counsel from doing so. The jury in the case found in favor of the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed the court's ruling that counsel could not make use of the Internet during jury selection. Brown reports that on appeal in the case (Carino...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on September 08, 2010 (boomark / email).