Plymouth trial collapses - but what is contempt of court and why does it matter?
A Plymouth trial has collapsed after three members of the jury researched the case on the internet.
Judge Paul Darlow discharged the jury in the assault and attempted robbery trial of Paul Easby after two women and a man admitted they had looked things up on the web.
He had given the panel a clear warning not to carry out their own research, and said to do so could result in prosecution for contempt of court.
The collapse is thought to have come at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.
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But what is contempt of court and why does it matter if jurors carry out their own research?
The basics
Contempt of court is essentially where somebody is deemed to have interfered with the administration of justice.
This may take several forms – from a newspaper or blogger revealing somebody’s identity which had been protected by the courts, to a juror discussing with a friend or newspaper the private deliberations of the jury room.
What’s the point of contempt laws?
Contempt of court rules aim to ensure fair trials by limiting juries’ exposure to prejudicial material – for example, a defendant’s previous convictions.
The point is a defendant has the right to be tried according to the evidence properly placed before a court and on that evidence alone.
Contempt laws exist to protect each person’s right to a fair trial.
So the current law, which dates back to 1981, prevents the publication of material which creates a substantial risk of seriously prejudicing a fair trial.
But what’s the harm in a juror doing their own research online?
There are a number of risks here. A juror researching a defendant might come across someone else with the same name and so end up reading totally unrelated material.
They may look up the scene of the crime on a street-view service, not understanding the camera's perspective may be different from that of the witness.
Or they may look up the law on a particular topic and pick up skewed or inaccurate information.
The danger is the material can be prejudicial and, though it may remain in the mind of the juror, cannot be challenged by the defendant in court.
So the aim is to ensure the jury does not get to see prejudicial or inadmissible evidence.
But a juror can’t be punished for researching a case online, right?
Wrong. Jurors have been sent to prison for carrying out online research on defendants. Last year Theodora Dallas, a juror who carried out online research on a defendant standing trial at Luton Crown Court, was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt.
The lord chief justice said Dallas had deliberately disobeyed the trial judge's instructions not to search the internet and added: “The damage to the administration of justice is obvious.”
And in June 2011 Joanne Fraill, 40, was given an eight-month jail term after becoming the first juror to be prosecuted for contempt of court for using the internet.
She admitted using Facebook to exchange messages with Jamie Sewart, 34, a defendant already acquitted in a multimillion-pound drug trial in Manchester in 2010, and carrying out research into another defendant while the jury was deliberating.
What’s more, in November last year the Law Commission proposed jurors who conduct online research may need to be prosecuted under a new criminal offence.
The body suggests new penalties for said jurors, and even considered confiscating jurors' mobile phones and internet-enabled devices when they attend court.
So what can be done?
The effectiveness of the contempt laws in England and Wales in the age of blogs and Twitter is a serious issue, which is why the Law Commission is proposing changes.
8 Comments
by RJTucker
Wednesday, March 20 2013, 4:19PM
“Of course, there was another case of a juror looking up information on the internet in Cork, Ireland earlier this year:
http://tinyurl.com/cuc2t2g
The 1981 act relates to publication issues and jurors communicating with outside sources (and was the act under which Joanne Frail was prosecuted). The case brought against Theodora Dallas was, I think you will find, a sui generis one in the guise of contempt "in the face of the court" – she had allegedly deliberately disobeyed the judges instruction regarding internet research.
I think the following needs to be considered:
1) The Lord Chief Justice had originally said, regarding checking jurors computers for case-related researches: "We are hardly likely to welcome a suggestion that the technological equipment belonging to an individual juror should somehow be vetted. Such an intrusion would be entirely unacceptable." (Guardian 26/01/10)
2) Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights ( ECHR) states that "Everyone has the right ... to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontier". Thus for anyone not to be able to research information on the internet there would either have to be an act of parliament stating this or it would have to be shown that this research would result in there not being a fair trial as required by Article 6 of the ECHR.
I personally do not see that internet research by a juror is necessarily adverse to a fair trial; he or she may find information which negates that presented in court. The important thing may be that the information is passed to the court.
Not all jurors are incapable of taking in information from different sources and handling it correctly. Those that are capable should not need to be "dumbed down" to the level of those that can't. Why, for example, if the law uses the word "coercion" do we need the terms "overborne", "impelled" or "forced"?
People who do a lot of research on the internet know that eventually, even there, you reach the point where it is extremely unlikely that you will find anything further of relevance. I wonder if this whole situation is not more to do with courts, lawyers and judges not wanting to have to spend time checking the internet for themselves for information that jurors and anyone else might find there.
If an accused has been held on remand I strongly suspect that he or she has not had access to the internet and would be dependent on his or her lawyers for information there. The jury system originates from the idea of an accused's peers being able to stand as honest people and being able to decide that the authorities do not have the necessary evidence against the accused. Surely there should be no restrictions in their efforts to achieve that goal.”
by RJTucker
Wednesday, March 20 2013, 4:16PM
“Of course, there was another case of a juror looking up information on the internet in Cork, Ireland earlier this year:
http://tinyurl.com/cuc2t2g
The 1981 act relates to publication issues and jurors communicating with outside sources (and was the act under which Joanne Frail was prosecuted). The case brought against Theodora Dallas was, I think you will find, a sui generis one in the guise of contempt "in the face of the court" – she had allegedly deliberately disobeyed the judges instruction regarding internet research.
I think the following needs to be considered:
1) The Lord Chief Justice had originally said, regarding checking jurors computers for case-related researches: "We are hardly likely to welcome a suggestion that the technological equipment belonging to an individual juror should somehow be vetted. Such an intrusion would be entirely unacceptable." (Guardian 26/01/10)
2) Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights ( ECHR) states that "Everyone has the right ... to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontier". Thus for anyone not to be able to research information on the internet there would either have to be an act of parliament stating this or it would have to be shown that this research would result in there not being a fair trial as required by Article 6 of the ECHR.
I personally do not see that internet research by a juror is necessarily adverse to a fair trial; he or she may find information which negates that presented in court. The important thing may be that the information is passed to the court.
Not all jurors are incapable of taking in information from different sources and handling it correctly. Those that are capable should not need to be "dumbed down" to the level of those that can't. Why, for example, if the law uses the word "coercion" do we need the terms "overborne", "impelled" or "forced"?
People who do a lot of research on the internet know that eventually, even there, you reach the point where it is extremely unlikely that you will find anything further of relevance. I wonder if this whole situation is not more to do with courts, lawyers and judges not wanting to have to spend time checking the internet for themselves for information that jurors and anyone else might find there.
If an accused has been held on remand I strongly suspect that he or she has not had access to the internet and would be dependent on his or her lawyers for information there. The jury system originates from the idea of an accused's peers being able to stand as honest people and being able to decide that the authorities do not have the necessary evidence against the accused. Surely there should be no restrictions in their efforts to achieve that goal.”
by Foldart
Friday, March 15 2013, 3:46PM
“Why do they let jurors carry the means of communication and internet connection into the jury room? Surely, keeping their mobile phones locked up for the duration would be the sensible approach. The courts court give the jurors a telephone number for emergency use by their families, if needs be.”
by OutsideView
Thursday, March 14 2013, 9:14PM
“I wonder if in this particular case the offending jurors will be prosecuted for contempt of court or punished in some way as otherwise it makes a mockery of the system.
The beauty of the court system is that the judge and the court premises come for free and also the prosecution service in a criminal case. These are costs incurred by the state whether or not a trial is in progress. The accused would of course incur costs of its defence team and would be a private matter between the accused and the defence team unless of course legal aid is being provided.
There are also some costs of a minor nature that can be claimed by jurors for certain out-of-pocket expenses but not for the time spent on jury service.
I therefore fail to see where the amount of £10 000 comes from unless this represents what it would cost if the accused had to bear the costs of the judge, premises and prosecution team.”
by OutsideView
Thursday, March 14 2013, 9:14PM
“I wonder if in this particular case the offending jurors will be prosecuted for contempt of court or punished in some way as otherwise it makes a mockery of the system.
The beauty of the court system is that the judge and the court premises come for free and also the prosecution service in a criminal case. These are costs incurred by the state whether or not a trial is in progress. The accused would of course incur costs of its defence team and would be a private matter between the accused and the defence team unless of course legal aid is being provided.
There are also some costs of a minor nature that can be claimed by jurors for certain out-of-pocket expenses but not for the time spent on jury service.
I therefore fail to see where the amount of £10 000 comes from unless this represents what it would cost if the accused had to bear the costs of the judge, premises and prosecution team.”
by Nevman
Thursday, March 14 2013, 8:35PM
“CharlieBob, the reason the courts limit themselves to evidence is that the source of that evidence can be questioned in court and its accuracy ascertained. Unlike your friend the internet.”
by OutsideView
Thursday, March 14 2013, 7:46PM
“Strengthens the case for the abolition of juries.
members of the public require a modicum of intelligence and some understanding of how the law works to act as jurors. It is apparent from a number of cases in this country that jurors do not appear to have these attributes.
Why not just have a judge to decide.
If a case goes to appeal it is decided by Judge(s) anyway without the help of a jury!”
by CharlieDodd
Thursday, March 14 2013, 7:05PM
“..Article quote-'A defendant has the right to be tried according to the evidence properly placed before a court and on that evidence alone'..
That's the flaw because a courtroom only presents a narrow blinkered view of the case instead of the big picture.”