We observe strict court rules in New Zealand that try to ensure juries are not "contaminated" by reading or hearing anything outside the courtroom. It is time to ask whether our courts try too hard.
In the age of the internet it is more difficult, perhaps impossible, to control the external influences on jurors. People are accustomed to getting an answer to any question that comes to mind, simply by typing the query into the device in their hand. Smartphones may be banned from jury rooms but trials commonly take several days. Jurors cannot reasonably be shut in for the duration.
Lawyers are so worried about this that panels such as the NZ Law Commission might suggest it become a crime for jurors to do their own research. A recent international meeting of Attorneys General, including New Zealand's Chris Finlayson, reached a similar view, we report today. The idea should go no further.
Jury service is already onerous enough without exposing jurors to the risk of a criminal charge for satisfying their curiosity. Lawyers could instead have more faith in the system they serve. A criminal trial is a very powerful forum. Jurors are quickly caught up in a drama that confronts them with testimony and issues that are much more extensive and subtle than anyone who is not involved in the case could know.
Judges routinely warn jurors at the beginning and end of the case that they should put aside everything they might have heard outside and decide the issues purely on the evidence before them. It is a sensible instruction but probably superfluous. To be able to see the people involved - accused, victim, witnesses, police - watch them as well as listen to them, and grapple with the conflicting arguments of counsel, is an experience that probably overwhelms any preconceived views or external information a juror may have had.
