Reply #30: way to avoid the issue [View All]

[iverglas]

We just sequester the jury if we don't want them to see anything.
TV, paper, radio, whatever.

The issue here is a PRE-TRIAL publication ban, so you tell us about how things are done in the U.S. DURING TRIAL. Hardly on point.

The justice system can assume what it likes about jurors. The justice system in Canada and the UK apparently prefers to assume something close to reality -- that juries are composed of human beings who bring their entire experience to their task. (In fact, that's the whole point of the beasts.) And that few people are capable of disregarding, or perhaps willing to disregard, what their experience tells them, in favour of what some strangers in a courtroom are telling them. That's really just kinda contrary to human nature, especially when it means doing something that ultimately offends the innate human desire for justice itself -- like acquitting someone who one is convinced is guilty of a serious crime.

There are obviously points to be made on both sides of the question, as there are on most questions. Acknowledgement of that fact tends to further useful discussion.