Content Quake

I ran into an article over at law.com thanks to The Blog Herald today, discussing the ramifications of blogs on jurors and jury selection. As someone who has personally just spent time doing my civic duty it caught my attention and was a great read. The summary is that a juror foreman, who was also a avid blogger made some controversial statements on this blog after being selected, but before proceedings had begun. Here is a quote from the Law.com article.
“The juror foreman, Scott Vachon, made an entry in his blog in early 2005, four days before jury selection, in which he said he would have to “listen to the local riff-raff try and convince me of their innocence,” according to court documents.

Once seated on the jury, but before the start of the trial, Vachon also wrote that he was surprised he was chosen, given his “strong beliefs” about the police and God, according to documents.”

The defendants representation found out about the blog later on, right after a guilty verdict was handed down by the jury and protested that the juror was biased and that a new trial should take place. The judge agreed to question the jurors but upheld the verdict. This quote from the attorney was very revealing.
“You don’t know if the jurors are communicating via this type of media or device after they are released each day, you don’t know what they are picking up. It’s not TV or radio, this is a whole new medium.”
I can say from personal experience that the internet is mentioned during the juror process already but nothing specific to blogs. All that is usually said is that you cannot read news regarding the trial you are being placed on. This case certainly sets a new precedent.