jury — Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

Media and the Right to a Fair Trial: Juror Impartiality in the Information Age

A 2021 study by Pew Research Center found that nearly 90% of Americans use the internet, social media, or smartphones regularly to access the news. [1] The proliferation of online information is particularly influential in high publicity cases—cases that involve terrorism or violent crime, garnering high levels of national media attention—in which juries may be skewed by the media they consume. In United States v. Tsarnaev (2021), the case of the Boston Marathon bomber currently on appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court, the risks of media bias are especially clear. In Tsarnaev’s case and similarly high publicity cases, trial judges ought to exercise more rigorous voir dire questioning on media consumption in order to protect defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a “trial by an impartial jury.”

Talia Traskos-HartJanuary 20, 2022Tsarnaev, social media, jury, news, Boston Marathon bombings, United States v. Tsarnaev, Sixth Amendment, U.S. Constitutional Law, trial court, voir dire, juror selection, juror impartiality

The People v. Representation: Why Jury Diversity Matters

The U.S. Department of Justice’s failure to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner has revived public calls to overhaul our criminal justice system. While these calls target racial profiling and brutality, the recently decided case of Flowers v. Mississippi spotlights a more obscure, but critical issue: how we define “a jury of one’s peers.”

Crystal ForetiaNovember 7, 2019jury, diversity, due processComment