By Eileen Burkhalter Smith

Great article in the New York Times about the effect of technology on juries, and, more specifically, technology's interference with jury trials. Several recent trials have been appealed or declared a mistrial because of jurors getting public information about the case from their phones with internet access, or posting updates on public messaging sites during the trial or deliberations. 

I dealt with a jury consulting company recently that mentioned they had run into this too. They monitored Facebook during voir dire and were able to eliminate several potential jurors who posted to their Facebook pages during the voir dire, about serving on the jury in that trial. I suspect this may become much more of a problem in the future.