Jury selection for high-profile trials has become an elaborate, sometimes months-long process, as in the case of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla last year.
In that case, a survey containing more than 100 questions was mailed to 550 voters in the Miami area months ahead of the April 2007 start of the trial. But none of the queries managed to elicit a fact that trial consultant Linda Moreno considered vital when she discovered it on the Internet -- that one potential juror had resigned from public office and was under investigation.
Consultant Anne W. Reed of the Reinhart law firm in Milwaukee finds the Internet most helpful when vetting younger jurors, who tend to be avid users. She says she asks every prospective juror she faces: Is there anything you've written that I can read online?
"Then I go and read that. That's by far the most helpful thing in learning about an individual," said Reed, noting that nicknames and coded identifications sometimes make it difficult to find a prospective juror's online writing.
Reed thinks online research can spare shy jurors the discomfort of answering probing questions in open court, but she said it had to be done discreetly to avoid any sense of invaded privacy.
Social networking sites are proving a useful tool in digging up information that can get an unwanted individual struck from a jury, said Marshall Hennington, a clinical psychologist whose Hennington & Associates has offices in Beverly Hills, New York and Miami.
"We're really getting an opportunity to find out where the skeletons are hidden," he said of jurors who seemed inscrutable in the courtroom.
In a recent murder case, Hennington recalled, a jury candidate denied knowing a fellow potential juror. The consultant discovered on the man's Facebook page that they not only knew each other, they were cousins. That was enough to get the juror dismissed.
Hennington has no qualms about plumbing the Internet for information damaging to the opposition.
"They're not giving me a call because they have a slam-dunk case. Clients call me because they know they have a difficult case and need to sell it to the jurors," Hennington said.
As long as the information obtained about a juror is publicly available and of use to a client, "everything is fair game," he said. "This is war."
Some trial consultants, including sociologist David Davis of R&D Strategic Solutions of Boston, aren't as enthusiastic. He said he found the spread of personal networking more distracting than telling.
