February 18, 2010
Simon
Fodden
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A study commissioned by the U.K. Ministry of Justice, “Are Juries Fair” [PDF] by Cheryl Thomas, examined the following issues:
- Do all-White juries discriminate against BME defendants?
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Do jurors racially stereotype defendants?
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Do juries at certain courts rarely convict?
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Do juries rarely convict on certain offences?
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Do jurors understand legal directions?
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Do jurors know what to do about improper conduct in the jury room?
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Are jurors aware of media coverage of their cases?
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How is the internet affecting jury trials?
concluding that there was “little evidence that juries are not fair” and that “research from other jurisdictions should not be relied upon to understand juries in this country.”
With that latter conclusion as a caveat, it’s interesting to note that, with respect to one locale in which the research was done, “while over half of the jurors at Winchester (68%) perceived the judge’s directions as easy to understand, only a minority fully understood the directions in terms used by the judge.” Written instructions were found to aid in comprehension.
Some jurors used the internet during the trials although it was not clear how many understood that they were not supposed to. Thomson concludes that in the future we need to ask questions such as:
First of all, did jurors realise they were not suppose to use the internet? Secondly, how did jurors use the internet?: did they simply “Google” the defendant or did they look for information on the law or evidence presented in the trial, did they look for information about other participants (legal counsel, judge, witnesses) or use social networking sites to discuss the case? Similar concerns over juror use of the internet exist in other jurisdictions (Brickman et al., 2008) and indicate that the issue is one of growing importance and complexity.
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... a per saltum project from Slaw ...
Our simple-to-remember rewriting of the URL for the Supreme Court of Canada — And lessupremes.ca works as well, bien sûr.
Gavel Busters
It's time to bring the hammer down on Canadian sites that mistakenly use the gavel as a symbol of law. Help us wipe out this scourge! Learn more on our Gavel Busters page.
The Friday Fillip Collections
Some end-of-week frivols fastened in folios for your enjoyment ...
Selected Fillips from 2006 2007
[2008 2009 coming soon ... ]
Slawstalgia
See how things used to be on Slaw:
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the page from June 5, 2006, when we'd be going for just about a year...
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the page from May 13, 2010 [PDF], nearly four years later...
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"Of advanced economies, Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens."
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Read this book and you will know whether you are more likely to be a happy lawyer at age 30 or age 60, why you can tell a lot about a firm from looking at its walls and windows, whether a 10 percent raise or a new office with a view does more for your happiness, and whether the happiness prospects are better in large or small firms.
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"The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers." If you haven't already said "This is how it begins" here's another reason to.
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This came to me the other day, sitting in my car, thinking about how law students don’t know anything about secondary sources and just insist (said disdainfully, and as if I had dirt in my mouth) on looking for answers on Westlaw or Lexis as if it will just come to them if they ask.
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Evan Chesler, the presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of the world’s largest law firms, wrote an article in 2009 called “Kill the Billable Hour”. It has not been killed, but he is confident that clients will continue to ask for alternatives.
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In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.
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“Music, libraries, and baseball: those are three things I’ve loved since I was very young.”
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"I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time," declared Democratic Senator Al Franken at Thursday's public hearing on the Internet, held in his home state of Minnesota. Unless it's freedom of religion," he added, "which, until last week, I thought we had kind of worked out."
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For those not familiar with English social statistics abbreviations BME = Black, minority ethnic, though as a description it’s somewhat vague in its reach.