Greetings. A fascinating story in the current New York Times -- Mistrial by iPhone -- explores how easy access to Google and other Internet-related technologies are throwing judges into a tizzy all through the U.S. court system.

One of the perceived problems is that jurors are blogging, twittering, and otherwise communicating about current cases in proscribed manners.

But a much more serious issue -- from the standpoint of those observers who are so upset about it -- is jurors using Google and other reference facilities to do their own research on cases, despite judges' admonitions not to engage in such behaviors -- with easy access to the Net from cell phones and other portable devices rapidly accelerating this trend.

While I understand the concerns, I would be less than totally honest if I didn't state plainly that I have very little sympathy for the "Google and friends will destroy the jury system" argument.

Unless there are plans to sequester all juries from start to finish of trials in Faraday cages, the jury system will just have to adjust to the fact that jurors can no longer be relied upon to act as "empty vessels" into which carefully controlled facts can be poured, isolated from all outside inputs. To expect jurors to comply with "no research" orders with such vast information resources literally at their fingertips is unrealistic in the extreme.

It seems certain that the changes in the jury system that will be wrought by these technologies will be significant, quite possibly game changing in many ways.

But there are many persons, including myself, who have long felt that the current U.S. jury system is severely dysfunctional and long overdue for major and fundamental alterations.

Too often the surest way to get tossed from a jury pool is -- egads! -- to actually know anything about the topic at hand. Cases are legion of jurors expressing horror after verdicts regarding miscarriages of justice, caused by the withholding of basic information from juries during the trials themselves. Evidence manipulation -- and jury manipulation by lawyers -- have become both sciences and art forms.

A current example of unconscionable fact suppression is the conviction under federal statutes of a legally-licensed (here in California, under state law) seller of medical marijuana. He's about to be sentenced, with a theoretical exposure to decades in federal prison. Yet during the trial his lawyers were forbidden by the court from even mentioning the key fact that he was selling medical marijuana in accordance with California law, while prosecutors were free to describe the defendant as if he were a run-of-the-mill drug dealer. "Disgraceful" doesn't begin to describe the obscenity of the process in this case.

So it should be no surprise that many persons reading about technology's impact on jury trials may react with something akin to "Good -- It's about time that our legal system advanced beyond 19th century information control concepts."

I realize that some readers may strongly disagree with me about this topic, and I welcome your thoughts. But I always call issues as I see them, and when it comes to technology vs. the current jury system, I hope (and expect) that technology will win -- because ultimately, in my opinion, that will be best for us all.

--Lauren--