Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Millennial Juror
So who has thought about the ramifications of presenting a case to a jury including millennials? The Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain has:
In November 2008, the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain,
Sir Igor Judge, sounded a warning about the generational
shift occurring as web-savvy citizens accustomed to getting
their information online entered the jury box. Noting the
consequences of this shift for the system of trial by jury, the
Lord Chief Justice observed, “If a generation is going to arrive
in the jury box that is totally unused to sitting and listening
but is using technology to gain the information it needs to
form a judgment, that changes the whole orality tradition with
which we are familiar.
In an article in the Texas Bar Journal, authors John G. Browning and Professor Wendy A. Humphrey discuss the issue and conclude:
In short, the majority of these Gen Y representatives clearly
favored the use of technology in the courtroom and indicated
that they would be in a much better position to absorb information
that was presented visually as well as verbally. Yet even
among the multitasking members of Generation Y, the picture
was by no means clear when it came to the possibility of too
much technology in the courtroom and the risk of sensory
overload.
(ljs)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2012/04/the-millennial-juror.html