Delicious LiveJournal Links for 11-20-2010

[andrewducker]

• Top judge says internet 'could kill jury system'
  (tags: law uk)
• A manifesto for UK Indie comics
  (tags: comics uk art business webcomics)
• House Dems Press GOP To Abandon Their Federal Health Benefits. Nice to see the Democrats showing a backbone.
  (tags: politics usa healthcare)
• e.e.hardee photography. Some pretty photography here, if anyone is looking for a photographer in Edinburgh
  (tags: edinburgh photography photos)
• Will the new rules on constituencies in the UK remove the MP-constituency link?
  (tags: uk politics)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> Top judge says internet 'could kill jury system'

Why yes, it could. But I don't see the problem here. Arguably, my knowledge of how trial by jury works is gleaned from 12 Angry Men which I've not even seen, but isn't the point that the jury is secluded? Therefore, surely they shouldn't have the internet or mobile phones in the first place, which the article says they're going to prevent, but a bit slow to keep up!

[fearmeforiampink]

They're secluded in that they attend court, then go back to a hotel together, IIRC. Previously they could call home and stuff, but people are less likely to go on about stuff through a phone call and it's limited exposure. Now, a lot of people are used to relatively constant exposure to the web, and constantly telling people what they're doing.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Right, well don't let them access the web. Which is what the judge said. Which is what should have been done several years ago.

[andrewducker]

As nmg says below, most juries aren't secluded in the UK. They get sent home at night...

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Juries are rarely secluded in the UK. I would have welcomed a fortnight in a hotel when I did jury service, but instead I had to cycle in the rain every day in order to get to court (the stipend was small enough that I could have afforded the daily bus fare only by foregoing a cup of coffee with lunch each day).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

12 Angry Men was pretty good FWIW (I've no idea about accuracy).

It sounds like that at a minimum you need some clear explanations of what's ok. It's plausible to say "don't read news" and "don't talk about the trail", but whether it's possible to say and enforce "don't read twitter or LJ".

Conversely, perhaps complete ignorance is not an inherent feature of jury trials. I know most of the problems with it: if you know what the press is saying you can prejudge easily, and if you have someone with legal knowledge, people may be unduly influenced by them, and if you know the accused was previous convicted of similar crimes, you may be biased against him. But conversely, maybe some knowledge would actually dovetail well with justice?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> if you know what the press is saying you can prejudge easily,

The press are already limited in what they can report on trials -- it's called contempt of court. Obviously, it's easier to control a handful of papers than the whole of twitter. But damn it, if they can haul up a guy for making a flippant comment about an airport, they could go after people for contempt of court, no?

And if you can say to jurors not to read papers, I think you can also tell them to keep off the blogosphere.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Re the MP-constituency link - what the first commenter at the source said (short version:hasn't happened in NZ). Although allowing a larger variation might be a better compromise between 'fairness' and stability.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - I think that having it very tight will mean that the link changes. If they allow more leeway then it will be more stable.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

The Australian rules are also worth looking at. They require (in part) the new boundaries to be based on projected figures (for time of next scheduled election), not just last census.

[matgb]

My observation remains what I said in the post she links to. The current system, leaving changes for over a decade, means that when changes do happen, they can be drastic (a look at the changes to Cornwall shows that one).

This set of changes will be drastic, but most current seats have some, well, interesting geographic effects.

But, if it does break the link in a regular, drastic, way, it strengthens the argument for going further, and introducing STV on natural boundaries.