Johnny and the Juice: How Sensationalizing Trials Dilutes Methods of Jury Insulation

Maya Vazquez

Although juror impartiality and insulation are established cornerstones of American litigation and democracy, the current technological age has served as a catalyst for juror bias and misconduct. Court TV, trial broadcasting on demand, and the rise of viral judicial proceedings stand to threaten the efficacy of the Sixth Amendment’s promise of an impartial jury by sensationalizing trials and increasing the likelihood that jurors are exposed to extrinsic information during the trial. In the interest of maintaining jury impartiality and guaranteeing parties their Constitutional rights, courts should begin implementing rules that address the heart of the problem: the sensationalizing of trials.

Since America’s earliest trials, courts have had to grapple with the balance of public access to court proceedings and the protection of parties’ rights to a fair and impartial jury. As time has progressed, the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken on the issues of improper communications with jurors, how lower courts should handle prejudicial pretrial publicity, and when live broadcasting of trials should be permitted. The methods of jury insulation intended to remedy these issues, however, have remained largely unchanged since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, technology and the means by which jurors receive information have rapidly evolved. Whether jurors deliberately ignore the court’s instructions to refrain from using social media during trials, or whether they passively consume and are affected by news media, information on demand is currently impacting juries. Despite these occurrences, research in the field is unable to capture the extent of juror internet use during trials as jurors are reluctant to admit when they have been exposed to, or have intentionally sought out, information during a trial. Given the lack of data documenting juror misconduct, how can we determine the best way to insulate juries in the modern era?