Why lawyers and the internet do not mix.

[theweaselking]

Justice Virginia Bell, of the NSW Supreme Court, has called for the internet to be purged of any material likely to prejudice a trial in order to prevent jurors conducting their own investigations into cases on which they are sitting, according to The Australian.

The judge made the proposal at a conference of Supreme and Federal court judges from across Australia, but there were apparently few takers.

Independent research by jurors is already illegal in Australia.

Judge Bell said prosecutors should comb the internet for potentially prejudicial material -- such as archives of stories mentioning persons involved in criminal cases -- and tell Australian ISPs to render the information inaccessible.

ISPs suggested that was impossible, according to the story, because much of the material was likely to reside on offshore servers -- such as search engines like Google and independent archives of newspapers, not to mention the internet archival project's comprehensive attempt to mirror the entire internet.

But Judge Bell contends that anyone serving up such material could be subject to contempt of court proceedings, regardless of where they were located.

Comments

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That could easily be construed as requiring Australian law to be inaccessible over the net, since knowledge of the law mnight be prejudicial.

Seriously, though, this is what happens when one country decides it has the right to make decisions for the whole world. Our invasion of Iraq set the stage for this.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Pah, freedom of information? It's not an actual right, right?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If you're on a jury, it's actually illegal.

Your judgement, in .au as well as the US and here, must be based SOLELY on the evidence presented within that courtroom and the law *as it is explained in the courtroom*.

People who know too much about the law walking in are not allowed to serve on juries, because it's assumed that their superior knowledge and the accompanying assumptions may prejudice them from ruling solely and absolutely on the material presented in the court.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware of that. It's the reason lawyers and law students can't be jurors. I was merely being sarcastic about both the implications of such a ruling, and its impracticalities.