The Risks of Social Media: Unfair Trials by Jury

Posted on by

Being fresh off an 8-day stint as a juror in a civil case, I found the article released today on Law.com very interesting. It focuses on the the right to a fair trial in the age of Facebook, Twitter and the internet in general. As we see in the instances below, in the age of instant information sharing, cases large and small are being disrupted and the somewhat-antiquated court system is trying to figure out how to address the problem of socially networked jurors.

  • Last month, one Michigan juror was disciplined for posting a comment about the case. Before the case was over, this juror posted on Facebook how it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY.” Alert defense counsel saw the posting, and the trial judge dismissed the juror, fined her $250 and ordered her to write a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial.
  • During a February 2010 criminal trial, a New York juror sent a key witness a Facebook friend request. The judge found that the juror’s communication was “unquestionably a serious breach of her obligations as a juror and a clear violation of the court’s instructions.”
  • In March 2009, after eight weeks of trial in a drug case, a Florida juror admitted to the judge that he had conducted Internet research. When the judge questioned other jurors, he found that eight others had been doing the same thing. The judge declared a mistrial.
  • In February 2009, an Arkansas juror used his mobile device to post eight messages on Twitter during court proceedings. Among the messages: “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.” The judge denied defense counsel’s motion for a new trial.
  • In 2008, a juror posted online a photograph he took of the murder weapon, a 15-inch, double-edged, saw-tooth knife. The judge held the juror in contempt of court, but denied motion for mistrial.
  • In 2006, the New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected a motion to overturn a murder conviction based on pre-trial comments a juror made on his blog. The juror’s posts included: “now I get to listen to the local riff-raff try and convince me of their innocence.”

If your company ever finds itself involved in a trial by jury, it may not be a completely fair one. Law.com suggests that lawyers should ask jurors during jury selection about the frequency of their Facebook and Twitter use, ask the judge to remind the jurors that they may come forward to report a fellow juror’s misconduct, monitor juror social media activity during trial and remind jurors before and after every jury break about the court’s ban on communicating with others about the case during trial.

gavel

Groundbreaking Flood Models for Latin America

Posted on by

Willis Re has introduced long-awaited flood models for Latin America through their research arm Willis Research Network (WRN). The models focused on large event scenarios for key cities such as Sao Paulo, Santiago and Bogota.

“The flood models provide South American insurance and reinsurance firms, as well as local governmental organizations, with new information that helps to identify and manage their exposure to flash floods caused by heavy rains and riverine overflow. Related results will be available for individual companies as well as the market as a whole and will have implications on planning, reinsurance and risk mitigation.”

The news was presented during the Geneva Association‘s 2nd Climate Change and Insurance meeting held in Sao Paulo last month by Dr. Juan Enlgand of Willis Re, who stated that these models might be used to consider the potential impact of climate change.

These models are greatly needed to say the least. Last year, floods and mudslides in Brazil caused 44 deaths and an estimated $1 billion in damages. In April, more than 250 died in Rio de Janeiro after torrential rains caused massive flooding and landslides. In June, more flooding in Brazil killed at least 41 and left more than 120,000 homeless. As Margo Black, CEO of Willis Re Brazil commented:

“Urban flood risk is an acute concern for Latin American re/insurers who have been challenged by growing losses and the lack of models to guide risk management.”

With Willis Re’s new models, it is hoped that future losses from almost-certain floods will be lessened in the ever-growing, major cities of South America.

Ten Tips for Mitigating Risk in Construction Projects

Posted on by

Coordinating insurance and risk management concerns with the need of a construction project can be challenging. In their latest, online-exclusive column in Risk Management magazine, Robert Horkovich and Kevin Connolly of Anderson, Kill & Ollick, offer some important tips to ensuring that insurance contracts and construction contracts are properly aligned.

1. Recognize the construction contract as the bedrock of risk management.
The contract documents are the place for agreements to provide insurance, as well as additional insured provisions, indemnity and exculpation clauses. They are also the place to make clear which parties are responsible for the many surprises that arise during the course of construction, from latent subsurface conditions to accidents and failures to construct the project in the manner that the owners and designers intended.

For more, check out the rest of the article, only on RMmagazine.com.

Major Expansion for Nevada Quake Research Center

Posted on by

September was national preparedness month. But disasters aren’t just going to take the other 11 months of the year off, you guys, so it’s important that the efforts to increase readiness continue. 24/7/365 is what I always say.

Critical but under-reported to that endeavor is research. We can’t know how to prepare unless we know precisely what we are preparing for.

buy anafranil online achievephysiorehab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/jpg/anafranil.html no prescription pharmacy

So it was with great exuberance that I came across this news story from the Insurance Journal about a major expansion to one of the nation’s premier earthquake research labs, the Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research at the University of Nevada, Reno.

A new $12.2 million federal grant will allow the University of Nevada, Reno, to more than double the size of its earthquake research center, making it the largest quake simulation facility in the country, school officials said.

Construction of a new 23,000-square-foot Shake Table Laboratory will allow for seismic tests on much bigger models of buildings and bridges than have ever been tested.

The lab has been conducting earthquake research for 25 years on shake tables, simulating seismic waves propagating through layers of soil beneath foundations to see how different structures react. The expansion will make it possible to house five 50-ton-capacity shake tables instead of the present four.

Great news indeed.

The final pricetag of the expansion is expected to be $18 million, creating a center of more than 30,000 square feet by 2013. And perhaps most encouragingly, this .

buy flexeril online achievephysiorehab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/jpg/flexeril.html no prescription pharmacy

2 million allocation comes as part of a $50 million package of grants that the Commerce Department handed out recently for the construction of new scientific research facilities in the United States — meaning that nearly 25% of the funds went to disaster research.

Looks like natural catastrophe risks are moving up the federal radar.

And as Ian Buckle, director of the center’s Large-Scale Structures Lab, aptly noted, the pay-off is well worth the investment.

“This will be a quantum jump in the range and complexity of experiments that can be undertaken in both new and existing laboratories, with advances in state-of-the-art earthquake engineering that are not currently possible,” said Ian Buckle, director of the center’s Large-Scale Structures Lab.

buy trazodone online achievephysiorehab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/jpg/trazodone.html no prescription pharmacy

“Safer buildings, bridges and more resilient communities will be the end result,” he added.

I think everyone can get behind that.

Nevada Earthquake Research

The Rogers and Wiener Bridge Structures Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno. (Photo: University of Nevada)