North Coast Connections

I'm on my way to Austin, Texas (a GREAT town) to attend a court technology conference and had a chance to browse my jury management e-newsletter while I'm awaiting connections here at SFO. Like so many aspects of life and work, everything seems to have become so complicated. Managing juries is no different. Here are a few of the emerging trends that affect your ability go be judged by a jury of your peers ...

THE CSI EFFECT
In the old days, juries were affected by television to the extent that the Perry Mason series led the public to believe confessions routinely occurred from the courtroom audience. Nowadays, the TV-effect comes from the proliferation of Crime Scene Investigation shows that delve into scientific minutiae in order to detect who-dun-it. As a result, a growing number of juries are acquitting defendants because prosecutors are not introducing scientific evidence on the form of fiber analysis, DNA, ballistics, fingerprints and more. The reality is that most crimes do not involve forensic evidence, and the cost for extensive lab work is prohibitive, rendering scientific evidence to only those cases where it is really needed.

THE CONNECTED JUROR
To be sure, the Internet impacts all aspects of our lives and juries are no different. My company issues annual Top 10 Court Website Awards and many of the recipients are recognized because they offer excellent online jury services such as orientation, check-in, postponement, and even the ability to print out parking and bus passes. Of course, the increasing use of Internet-based jury management leads to the question of who is left out, especially when the end game is to find the widest cross section of a community as possible. Austin, Texas (naturally), has taken this concept seriously and actually calls theirs the I-jury. They claim that their community demographics insofar as access to the Internet has enabled them to maintain racial, economic and gender diversity.

THE MEDDLING JUROR
I previously wrote about blogging jurors and the difficulties associated when there is too much jury connectivity. People are strange creatures who do strange things from time to time, and juries are no different. Nonetheless, jurors are not supposed to conduct independent experiments to test the validity of testimony, nor are they supposed to conduct independent research by "Googling" on their smart phones inside the jury deliberation room.

Sometimes technology and culture enhance the jury experience and sometimes it hinders our ability to provide fair, equal and accessible justice. Staying on top of it all is the challenge.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Jury Duty (1995) with Pauly Shore

Posted by Chris Crawford at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Vista, the oft-maligned operating system from the evil empire, reached its first milestone ... Service Pack 1 is the first major tweaking that Vista has had since its erstwhile launch. It doesn't do anything to correct what most users agree are fundamental flaws with the operating system, but it does make Vista more stable and fleet of foot.

I use Vista on both my desktop and laptop, however, I'm not a fan. This is not because I hate Microsoft or I'm some avid Mac or Linux pusher. I don't like Vista because it is clunky, it changed everything around for no good reason, it has huge compatibility issues and it doesn't improve the computing experience.

I downloaded Service Pack 1, but frankly I don't notice any difference one way or another. For those of you out there who have your PCs set for automatic updates for these sorts of upgrades, I caution you to go to the CONTROL PANEL, click on WINDOWS UPDATE and check NOTIFY ME BEFORE DOWNLOAD so you can pick and choose which updates to want installed before your computer does it for you. I've known too many instances where auto updates have caused huge problems. One of these is to NEVER update to something that "authenticates" your operating system.

To find out the good, bad and ugly of Vista, visit PC Magazine's one-stop Vista resource.

Forewarned is forearmed

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I received a rather odd request from the Government of Hong Kong today. As a contractor who has worked extensively in their court system, I am still signed up to receive email notification when the government sends out requests for contract bids. One never knows when a juicy project may pop up, and I have a fair-to-good chance of being selected for it if it involves judiciary work.

Anyway, Hong Kong passed a new law in 2007 regulating email notices, so they sent me this notice in English and Chinese ...

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance (UEMO) (Cap. 593) and the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Regulation (UEMR) were enacted in 2007. The UEMO regulates the sending of "commercial electronic messages" with a "Hong Kong link". In this regard, we would like to seek your explicit consent to continuously subscribe to our Service, i.e. to receive our emails on tender information. Grateful if you can reply us with the attached form duly filled on or before 31 March 2008, please.

In other words, in order to continue receiving subscription email notices, I have to "consent" in writing. Hmm ... this means that anyone with a Hong Kong e-address operating a listserv, email newsletter subscription, or even a blogger's auto-notification when comments are posted have to first "consent" to receiving emails. How awkward.

Of course, their intent is good. Spam is a MAJOR problem with a VERY high price tag to individuals and business. This particular law attempts to regulate email, phone calls (do not call lists), unsolicited faxes, instant messages and even text messages. However, regulations that cause government agencies to have to re-subscribe those who affirmatively signed up to receive listserv email notices seems a bit onerous to me.

I am subscribed to a dozen or more email lists. Only two send out a periodic ping advising subscribers that they are subscribed to the list (duh). Ironically, these notices end up in my spam filter where I ignore them. Again, it seems rather dumb to me.

As long as mass email blasts have an unsubscribe feature, I think there is no need to handcuff the originators by requiring more than the original act of subscribing. If these blasts are spam (unsolicited advertising), I learned long ago NOT to use the unsubscribe feature because too many spammers use this to verify that yours is a valid email address and then either sell you to another spammer, send you more junk, or both.

These regulations, as well intended as they may be, provide a justification for the pulling of information instead of the pushing. For instance, blog and RSS feeds get around these regulatory problems by offering technology that allows the user to pull content into a browser instead of pushing content into someone's email box. At first, I found this clunky and had to use a third party feed reading software, but now the Firefox browser allows you to easily subscribe to a bunch of RSS feeds and merely click on each to find its content.

So go ahead and complain about unwanted spam ... just be careful that the regulated solutions may not solve the problem and may even cause a few problems of their own.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Hormel Foods

Posted by Chris Crawford at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, I promised myself NEVER to get one of those ball-and-chain contraptions that hook you up to your email 24-7-365. Labelled "crackberries" by some workers who claim that their employers force them to carry these "smartphone" devices and thereby promote compulsive behavior, I used to laugh at these pitiful creatures huddled over their saucer-sized devices thumb-typing email responses while balancing a low-fat Starbuck's latte in the airport awaiting their boarding call. No more. I am one with the Blackberry and it is one with me.

Why did I fall asleep next to the pod, like those hapless zombies in The Body Snatchers? I have very plausible reasons:

1. I hate carrying around multiple equipment / devices.
Before I picked up my new Blackberry Pearl, I carried around a cell phone, a Palm Pilot, an MP3 music player and I was just about to buy a GPS automobile navigation device. I was starting to feel like Batman with the need for an extensive utility belt. My most compelling argument for taking the plunge is to consolidate numerous gadgets into one.

2. But wait ... there's more
Much like the TV infomercials that implore you to buy their product because of all the added bonuses, this smartphone also allows you to browse the Internet and receive other WiFi benefits. One of these is offered to AAA members than enable the user to inquire about the nearest lodging, restaurants and other services. The built-in GPS unit can then guide you to the location. Too cool, especially with my gruelling travel schedule.

3. It's small
I hate those huge smartphones that are too wide to wear on your belt or conveniently keep in your pocket. This is due to the need to fit a full QUERTY Keyboard that even then was too small to use effectively. This baby is small, light and elegant at 4.2 x 1.97 x 0.57 inches and a scant 3 ounces.

I am resisting the urge to hook up the email function and , frankly, the ultra-small keyboard would probably preclude my sausage-like thumbs from effectively typing anyway. All the better. The prime reason I didn't want one of these suckers is to avoid being constantly chained to work.

So hopefully, I can enjoy my Blackberry without having it turn into a Crackberry. I can also go through life without huge muscle-bound thumbs caused by excessive thumb-typing.

Serenity now.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = BlackberryPearl.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)