ST. LOUIS -- A St. Louis juror's use of Google to research a legal term, although an example of "knucklehead" misconduct, will not overturn the jury's verdict, a St. Louis judge ruled Friday.
While warning that "verdict by Google" can pollute the jury's deliberations with "toxic, inaccurate or misleading factual misinformation," St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson said that juror Kevin Hink's search was analogous to consulting a dictionary, and did not prejudice the case. Wilson said that the information that Hink received via Wikipedia "is not legally incorrect, and is not inconsistent with the instructions provided to the jury."
Wilson also reduced the total amount awarded to former St. Louis police officer Tanisha Ross-Paige to just over $3 million from $7.5 million, citing a state law capping punitive damages.
A St. Louis jury awarded the money during a trial in March at which Ross-Paige and her attorneys claimed she was harassed by supervisors in retaliation for complaints about sexual harassment.
Attorneys for the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners had sought to have the verdict reduced or tossed out on various legal grounds, but Wilson said his "greatest concern" was the claim of juror misconduct.
Hink told Wilson and attorneys on both sides of the case last month that he searched the phrase "where do punitive damages go?" on his smart phone after the jury awarded $300,000 in compensatory damages to Ross-Paige. Jurors eventually awarded Ross-Paige $7.2 million in punitive damages.
At a hearing called to discuss Hink's misconduct and other issues, Hink said that a Wikipedia page was the first search result returned, and he said he read the first part of the entry. The page says that the plaintiff would receive part or all of the punitive damages and that punitive damages are often awarded when compensatory damages are deemed inadequate.
But Hink could not remember whether he had read it aloud and couldn't say for certain whether any other jurors had heard him if he had.
He did say that he thought he would have remembered if the Wikipedia information "changed the course of the debate." He also said the punitive damages verdict came "a while" after his Google search, and that while uncomfortable with a figure over $5 million, he suggested roughly $7 million in an attempt to get jurors to agree on an amount.
In his ruling, Wilson said that Hink and the other jurors were repeatedly warned not to do their own research, including through the use of Google.
"Such knucklehead juror misconduct in stark defiance of repeated admonitions by this Court not to access GOOGLE concerning the case threatens to jeopardize the traditional trial by jury," he wrote.
Both lawyers and Wilson had warned during the June hearing that jurors' use of smartphones threatened to become "second nature" due to the ubiquity of their use outside the courtroom.
In recent years, jurors elsewhere have also been caught using smartphones to search for facts or communicate via social media, even reaching out to participants in the trial.
Hink triggered the misconduct investigation when he called police board lawyers after the trial, expressing second thoughts and admitting to the use of his cell phone.
Lawyers for the police board, which was sued because the alleged misconduct occurred before City Hall took control of the police department, then appealed the verdict, citing Hink's admissions and other factors.
A spokeswoman for the Missouri Attorney General's office, which represented the police board, declined to comment.
John Eccher, one of the lawyers representing Ross-Paige, said he would be "incredibly surprised" if the case was not appealed further.
Robert Patrick covers federal courts and federal law enforcement for the Post-Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter: @rxpatrick.
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McClatchy-Tribune News Service
