Did you read Trump’s tweet from last night?
“Time to take down the Statue of Liberty. Ugly dress, too French, heavy calves. Sad, must go.”
OK. I admit, I made that up, but it could have been true. Trumpovich has said more outrageous, stupider things, frequently and with wild abandon.
I don’t really understand this Twitter thing. What worse is that I do understand how it feeds uncritical thinking by people who prefer sound bite to argument and discourse. But we live in a democracy, and this is what people want; right? This is what the First Amendment requires?
So why not make American great again, and merge two great institutions together: the right to trial by jury with the right to express one’s self in mindless sound bites? Let us admit it: Twitter has blossomed because Americans have the attention span of crickets. And many have no more cognitive ability than crickets, to boot, but you go to trial with the jurors you have, not the jurors you want.
Here is how trial by twitter might work. A “fair and impartial,” but appropriately ignorant jury is selected for a trial that involves a scientific controversy, at least a controversy in the minds of the litigants and their hired expert witnesses. The jurors need not be inconvenienced by travel to the local court house; they need only have their smartphones available at all times. If they cannot afford a smartphone, one will be given to them. The lawyers will then start to tweet their opening statements, alternating tweets. Each side is allowed 100 tweets. In trials designated complex, each side gets 150 tweets.
Then come the witnesses. One at a time, first for plaintiff; then for defendant. Each witness is permitted to tweet his or her testimony, after first tweeting an oath to tweet the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me. The witness is permitted two tweets, after which the opposing counsel is permitted to cross-tweet once. Opposing counsel may interpose an objection tweet, with the trial judge tweeting his or her ruling. If the objection is sustained, then the offending tweet will be deleted. The 2:1 tweets are repeated until the witness has nothing left to tweet. After each witness, legal counsel are permitted interim argument of 25 tweets each, alternating. In an effort to promote early settlements, jurors are permitted to “like” tweets from witnesses or counsel, at every stage.
Final arguments are tweeted, of course, again with alternating tweets. The tweeter with the burden of proof gets the final tweet, followed by the judge’s instructions, delivered in tweets. A jury foreperson is appointed, and deliberations proceed by twitter, marked private. Verdicts are returned by the foreperson’s tweet, with the other jurors’ tweeting their agreement, or dissents. Post-verdict motions and appeals can easily be handled by twitter, as well.
Due process preserved, and the right to trial inviolate!
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