Jurors are not supposed to look at media coverage of the case during a trial since their verdicts are supposed to based on the evidence presented in a trial, rather than media reports. But can they really resist taking a sneak peek on the Internet?

In February of 2010, the U.K.’s Ministry of Justice released a very interesting report, titled “Are Juries Fair?“, by Professor Cheryl Thomas.  Among other things, the study examined jurors’ use of the Internet to look up information about their cases in both long, high profile cases and standard cases lasting less than two weeks, with little media coverage. The report found:

• All jurors who looked for information about their case during the trial looked for it on the Internet, as opposed to television, newspapers or some other source. (Well, okay, so this one wasn’t exactly a big surprise…).

• More jurors said they “saw” information on the Internet than admitted to “looking for it” on the Internet. Since they were doing something that a  judge should have told them that they were not supposed to do, this may explain why jurors were more likely to say the saw reports on the Internet than said they looked for it. (See? Lawyers aren’t the only people in the courtroom who resort to semantics….). But just what are the figures?

• In high profile cases, 26% said they saw information on the Internet compared to 12% who said they “looked”.

• In standard cases, 13% said they saw information compared to 5% who said they looked.

• It’s not the young jurors who are sneaking a peek on the Internet to look up information about their trials. Among all jurors who said they looked for information on the Internet, most (68%) were over 30 years old. Among high profile cases, an even higher percentage of jurors (81%) who looked for information on the Internet were over 30 years old.

Of course, the results of this study raise a number of other questions like, did these jurors even realize that they are not supposed to use the Internet? And how exactly are they looking for information? For example, are they just searching on Google, or are they actually discussing the case on social networking sites? What sort of instructions from a judge are most effective in preventing jurors from looking up their case on the Internet?

The study also looked at a number of other issues, such as whether all-white juries discriminate against black and minority ethnic defendants (the study found that they didn’t), whether juries rarely convict on certain offences or at certain courts and whether jurors understand legal directions and whether they are aware of media coverage (in high profile cases, almost 3/4 of jurors were aware of media coverage of their case). The report canvasses all of the above  in some detail and is definitely worth the read.

One of the conclusions was that jurors want and need new tools to better understand the trial process – the report suggested the use of written juror guidelines clearly outlining the requirements for serving on a trial. Until then, Justice may be blind, but Jurors will Wiki.