Legal Research

Should Judges Check Facts Online?

By John Gregory

Internet Law News today reports that a judge who went online to check some facts about a case before him did not invalidate his decision: U.S. v. Bari, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 09-1074.

The court held that judges may note facts ?not subject to reasonable dispute? that can be learned from accurate sources. The judge may ?confirm his [or her] intuition?.

Does this sound right to you? How would you apply those two criteria (re dispute and re accurate sources)?

OTOH how do you prevent a judge from doing this? Is it realistic or reasonable? What about the rules of evidence that govern in an orderly fashion (one assumes) the admission of facts that the judge is supposed to use in coming to a decision.

As you know, courts in the US have been exercised about jurors and even parties to litigation going online, using Twitter during trials, and so on. But what may the judges do? What may our judges do?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on March 23, 2010 (boomark / email).