A building materials company and its owner have appealed a $12.6 million verdict against them, alleging that a juror was posting related messages on Twitter.com while hearing the case.
The motion filed Thursday seeking a new trial claims the juror sent eight messages — or “tweets” — to the micro-blogging Web site via his cellular phone. One read in part: “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter.”
Another describing what “Juror Jonathan” did today, read: “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”
The motion filed by the lawyer for Russell Wright and his company, Stoam Holdings, alleges the juror researched the case and communicated with others outside the jury. Wright did not appear in court when the case was heard in Washington County in late February.
A new message posted Friday by a Johnathan Powell of Fayetteville read: “Well, I’m off to see a judge. Hope they don’t lock me under the jail, and forget about me for four days.”
Har! The idiot has responded to – and offered up – enough messages already, hasn’t he?
And he should go to jail for some time. It appears that he just doesn’t care about the judicial process.
Now there will be a retrial which will cost thousands of dollars more in fees and time.
The jury system is a great idea. I wish they would just pay the jurors a suitable per diem and not treat them as a commodity.
I hope they charge him for the complete cost of the re-trial.
So there was an “irregularity.” Most often, judges rule them to be inconsequential and the verdict stays.
Personally, the one way communication doesn’t bother me that much. Two way tweets with evidence or persuasion might be different==how closely should the issue be analyzed for probable affect? Big difference between one quiet guy who just voted, versus someone who pushed for an outcome?
Well, hopefully as a civil case only 9 of 12 jurors might be needed–states vary on that.
There were 8 tweets total in the motion for a retrial. They could be categorized 3 ways…
Before jury selection.
Stating he was selected (but did not mention the case).
Post-verdict.
According to the motion, he did not tweet during the actual case.
A mountain was made out of a molehill.
http://tinyurl.com/caq4n7
If it was one way communication it is no way affects the jurors decision. If two way, that’s a different story.
#5–Paddy==timing. The judge usually instructs the jurors not to make up their minds until all the evidence is heard. This does sound like twitters made during jury consideration, but not necessarily.
Awesome.. I love it when someone sticks it to the jury system. I hate those jury duty calls. Maybe I should game it from the inside instead of wasting my time figuring out creative excuses…
#7:
“I love it when someone sticks it to the jury system.”
Yeah, the jury system totally sucks, dude. Why can’t the king just give the hangman a thumbs-up/thumbs-down like olden days? I had so much more free time then.
idiot.
#5, Cow-Paddy, Ignorant Shit Talking Sociopath, Retired Mall Rent-A-Cop, Pretend Constitutional Scholar, Fake California Labor Law Expert, Pseudo Military Historian, Phony Climate Scientist, and Real Leading Troll Extraordinare,
Once again your reading skills have failed you.
The juror is alleged to have … researched the case and communicated with others outside the jury.
That is a no no. A juror is only allowed to decide the case with the information with which they are given. Nor are they allowed to discuss it with ANYONE, including fellow jurors until the case is finished.
Ooopps, my bad. I plum forgot. You are the fucking expert.
Could this be an insider trading situation. The juror had information that no one else had, a verdict. And he gave that information to a limited audience for their trading benefit. Even though he wasn’t inside the company, he had privileged information.
I wonder how many other juries have used their information privilege to gain from stock price reactions to verdicts?
# 9 Mr. Fusion said, “The juror is alleged to have … researched the case”
If true then it is a no, no. The twitter aspect is meaningless.
“I wonder how many other juries have used their information privilege to gain from stock price reactions to verdicts?”
I’m sure the numbers are so small as to be statistically insignificant. In order for this to be viable you’d have to:
1) Be dealing with a case that has *real* monetary value, enough to depress/raise stock prices (which *isn’t* a 1:1 with liquid assets vs. stock price, especially considering the companies involved probably have liability insurance which will absorb the brunt of the cost/litigation);
2) Be dealing with two companies with positions unwilling to compromise, which given (1) pretty much strikes you down to less than .001%;
3) They both must be publicly traded companies; and
4) Be dealing with a jury trial, which turns that .001% in (2) down to… an even smaller number.
The “best” way to game the stock prices via litigation would be to initiate a class action against a publicly traded company, and even then the class has to be big enough to justify a major loss in liquidity.
That being said, the reason insider trading is illegal is that stock holders owe a fiduciary duty to the corporation, and so insider information should be treated as privileged. Owning stock in a corporation would disqualify you from jury duty (I guarantee you BigLaw is keeping an eye for this) and so would buying stock mid-trial. So by the time you could trade stock in the corporation in order to profit, the information is already public.
In other words – incredibly impractical.
#12–Alex==you say: “stock holders owe a fiduciary duty to the corporation” /// No they don’t, not to be confused with “everyone” has an obligation to follow the law, and more specifically: not to make/be a part of trading with non-public information.
Pretty simple really… why in hell did they allow a juror to have a cell phone during the trial. They may just as well have given all the jurors computers so they could surf the web. The court’s at fault here.
if it was a problem then they should have stoped him then and there. besides wouldn’t the verdict be “public” knowledge anyways
#14, Hopper,
Yes, but, …
Does a court need to explain every minutia of what a juror may / may not do?
#8
Maybe we should have a list of “volunteer” jurors… who have the time & inclination to serve on a jury. Why draft everyone?
Moron..
Normally I get out of jury duty but a couple of years ago I decided I’d go.
As soon as they took a look at me and heard my profession the defense attorney dismissed me.
I was disappointed.
#18 I tried around 2002-2003. Every one of us in the pool who were professionals & exec types were dismissed as soon as the completed questionnaires were collected.