Twittering juries

The era of open media and leaks of state secrets confronts courts and governments ... No solution in sight ... Barry Lane says its best to lie back and surrender

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Judge, is all a twitter over jurors Tweeting and Googling.

His solution is the standard judicial response: "just don't do it."

It reminds me of the old priestly exhortation to "stop it or you'll go blind", and about as useful I suspect.

Jurors are creating havoc all over the place because they take no notice of judges telling them not to access the internet during trials - see:

• Is the internet destroying juries?
• Google-savvy jurors can put criminal trials at risk
• Judges are resigned to jurors researching their trials online
• Judge raps teenager who texted gossip to juror
• Facebook post gets Detroit-area juror in hot water
• Juror's imprudent iPhone search causes mistrial

An allied problem is what to do about the proliferation of suppression orders which seem to have multiplied in Victoria like topsy.

Retired Supreme Court judge, (Fabulous Phil) Cummins, comes down on the side of the community's right to know while serving supremos likes Justice Lex Lasry are trying to hold the line against trenchant criticism from professional operators like Peter Bartlett.

Running parallel with juries and the internet is governments' problem of what to do about WikiLeaks and its clones.

The response is that somehow or other they can be stopped, or otherwise contained or controlled.

It's highly unlikely that those responses are likely to be effective.

As far as juries are concerned, abstinence won't work because, like sex, drugs and rock & roll, it's contrary to human nature to abstain.

Even Il Papa seems to have thrown in the towel at least on condoms and sex.

When a determined outfit like the Roman Curia is ready to concede, after centuries of running the abstinence line, I think the jig's up.

Additionally, juries are now well aware they are being snowed.

As Associate Professor Julia Davis, of the University of South Australia, said while commenting on a recent survey of jurors done in conjunction with Professor Kate Warner of the University of Tasmania:

"So many times [jurors] said they were not given the whole story. They knew something had happened but they didn't know what. There was a feeling that they did not get the whole evidence."

Prof Kate Warner: juries surveyAin't that the truth?

If juries are to be retained, there has to be a fundamental shift in the prevailing attitude of keeping them in "mushroom" country.

Ditto for the WikiLeaks phenomenon. Citizens are well aware that "truth is the first casualty of war".

Some might even believe that it's in pretty short supply with corporates and government in peace time.

One thing is now clear: the internet has killed the old "D" notice stone dead, although attorney general Robert McClelland is floating the idea of the media signing-up to a "national security protocol".

Don't hold your breath.

No longer can governments, corporations or judges muzzle the exchange of information. It's just taking a bit of time for the penny to drop.