"We're really getting an opportunity to find out where the skeletons are hidden."
- Marshall Hennington, clinical psychologist
The follow short article comes from a newser,com online article source (it was short so I just pasted into onto here). It explains how technology is now influencing the selection of jurors. This indeed isn't shocking to me, but instead shows how our world demands that one keeps up with technology. The article reads...
"Get called for jury duty these days, and you can expect attorneys to know a lot more about you than they let on. Trial consultants who used to specialize in legwork--visiting neighbors and friends to gather clues to potential jurors' views--are now expert Web surfers, tracing things like spending habits, campaign contributions, letters to the editor--not to speak of the personal info on your Facebook page, the Los Angeles Times reports.
"If a juror has an attitude about something, I want to know what that is," says one veteran jury researcher. Both sides can be counted on to be doing the research, says the head of a Dallas-based research firm: Anyone who neglects Internet searches "is bordering on malpractice." "
I personally think that this technology could be dangerous when selectiong jurors. I want to point out that I think it is a smart move to gather information from sources like blogs and facebook. However, I would like to look into the psychological aspect of it. I can remember back when I was really young and the "cool" thing to was to write blog posts on your msn profile after a day at school. You would ramble about things you did. However, half of these things were half as awesome as I made them sound. I would even lie about doing certain things or having certain things. Like self-report data, I feel like people on the internet have the ability to portray themselves to the world as they wish to be seen. Like self report data, this can be very influenced by social desirability bias. I feel that facebook even has a strong push to portray yourself in a socially acceptable way. So as lawyers look into jury selection through the eyes of the internet I feel that they must be careful that how a person may portray themselves online may or may not be a very good judgment of the type of person they really are. I feel like technology can be a great thing, but can also cause some trouble some days too. The following link brings you to a trial that was delayed due to a facebook message.
http://www.digtriad.com/news/local_state/article.aspx?storyid=138378
I find the fact that jury selection is being based off of things found on the internet. Although I think it's a good way to find out more information about a person, as you stated, people don't always put the truth out there. Some people post certain pictures to make them seem a certain way. Some people also overemphasize things. It also works the opposite way. Some people don't put certain things out there just so people don't find them and that can hide facts that would be important to know when selection someone to be a juror. In my personality psychology class we've learned a lot about data and especially self report data. I learned that there can be several instances in which people answer a certain way in order to be seen in that way. This works for most situations in life.
As time passes, and technology increases, it was only a matter of time for Facebook to become completely mainstream. Putting yourself out there on display for the people can effect peoples perceptions of you considerably. Especially when it comes to employment or the law. There are privacy settings available, but do these completely protect you? There are actually businesses starting up that will seek out information via social networking sites about people. Some even claim that things you delete are still available, I am not sure if there is any truth to this, but it is a scary thought.
Lots of times attitudes, beliefs, practices, and prejudices can be grossly distorted from an outsiders one time viewing of a profile. I have not seen anything, but have police started using this to find out information about suspects? Would this not bias them immediately? It will be very interesting to see how the role of social networking sites plays out in the law field, potentially biasing and stereotyping individuals from readily available information may definitely have a significant impact on a number of issues in the near future.
I agree that a majority of people's profiles on social networks on the internet such as Facebook are created to be very socially desirable. Although that goes without saying that obviously some people use them as a chance to express their nonconformity. Potential biases and stereotyping can definitely result from reviewing someone's Facebook page or Twitter account.
And to answer Cory's question above, I have heard incidences where police have used conversations or postings on Facebook as evidence in their cases. They also get leads to suspects or potential crimes from investigating social networks. This just shows that people need to be more cautious of what they give access to and say on their internet accounts.
As for jury selection, I think that using technology to find out potential juror's backgrounds is not necessarily a bad thing. However, when you factor in social desirability and "talking up" oneself, it could bias opinions from attorneys and judges about whether or not you should be allowed to serve on a jury.
I found this very interesting. I do agree along with the rest of you that personal information on the web such as facebook, MySpace, twitter, or public chats, can be extremely deceiving. I think that it is kind of sad in a way that people of authority, potential employers, professors and more rely largely on these public pages to gain information about you and base their decisions’ of what they see. I myself have at one point in time or another have put fake or misleading information on my pages just to portray myself in a different light. With that said I do not think that all the information people find should be believed. And with the case that was attached I do not think that the trial should have been delayed. There was one simple question asked and in my opinion it did not affect the juror’s judgment in anyway about the case.
I found this post very interesting in the sense that we all pretty much use facebook. I even know all my aunts and uncles have it, even my grandma...I know what your thinking...trust me I know. But when the court turns to this method of researching future jurors, I believe that it is the right thing to do, what if you were in court and the person that was going to represent you was against your case in some way and they were weeded out because of what was seen on facebook. Wouldn't that make you happy? I know I would be, so with the advancement of technology and communication, the court has every right in using new ways to check out future jurors to make sure everyone gets a fair trial and everyone goes in to the trial open minded.