I understand why jurors need to be sequestered from media coverage and stuff, but it's crazy that they're prohibited from doing ANY internet research or fact-checking related to the case. Some guy is being fined $11k because he Googled a patch that an ICE officer was wearing in their case -- the jury was told in court it was a trade workers' union patch, but the guy didn't think it was since he was a retired pipe fitter and didn't recognize the logo. So he went home and googled it and says he found it to be a white supremacist logo. And since he googled it, he's being charged with contempt and fined for the costs of the mistrial he caused by doing so. But like… doesn't that mean that our court system is set up so that juries could be lied to (by prosecutors, etc) and be unable to do any verification or fact-checking without literally committing a crime……?
This. I served on a jury and they wouldn’t read us the law the defendant was being charged under without a conference with the lawyers and the judge. WTH
