Yes, this time it's about jurors and the intertubes:

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, wasting eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

“We were stunned,” said the defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he was on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”

If the Judge somehow shows up tomorrow in 3d DCA Watch, I am outta here!

So as I do every St. Patty's Day, my day began in the normal fashion -- an early morning viewing of the 1985 lost classic "Troll," while sipping a stiff Irish coffee, followed by a Murphy's/naturebee double shot chaser.

Oh it's gonna be a good day.

I then did a few edits to Judge Zloch's memo to Chief Judge Moreno, pdfed it on over to the courthouse, and then jumped in the hot tub for an extended bath. I even exfoliated!

Who knew by the time I got in this morning intrepid reporter Julie Kay was all over the story:

Recipients of the Zloch memo said they were stunned and certain Graham was not behind it. Moreno’s subsequent memos were sent internally only to members of the bench.

“This is family,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Palermo in Miami said. “I love Judge Moreno. What Judge Zloch did was a surprise, and the way he did it. It’s a family affair. And I know Judge Graham is not that type of guy.”

When asked what he felt motivated Zloch, Palermo said: “The memo speaks for itself. You’d have to ask Judge Zloch.”

Just another day in paradise, people.

Sheesh it's not even 9 a.m. and my work here is almost done!

Poor Fort Lauderdale attorney Loring Spolter.

All he did was suggest to Judge Zloch that he is biased and cherry picks cases so he can further his conservative, anti-employment plaintiffs' agenda:

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Loring Spolter said the former chief judge allows his religious and conservative views to color his decisions. He also commissioned a statistical analysis that Spolter said showed it was impossible for so many of his cases to be randomly assigned to Zloch, only to be dismissed.

Cases are assigned in the Southern District through a somewhat weighted wheel system that takes into account where cases are filed and where the action occurred.

Spolter bolstered his arguments in court filings by saying Zloch has made financial contributions to Ave Maria Law School, which is relocating to Naples. Spolter said Zloch has hired four law clerks from the school. Ave Maria officials have made statements supporting the position that women who have given birth should leave the workplace to become homemakers.

Zloch’s support of the school “is a telltale sign of his partiality,” Spolter told the DBR for an article published June 8.

Zloch also has longstanding involvement with the Federalist Society and other conservative groups and shows a pro-employer bias, Spolter’s pleadings alleged.

I guess this didn't go over so well, and now Zloch is considering suspending Spolter from the practice of law in the Southern District for five years.

Alternatively, Spolter can take out a full-page ad in the DBR apologizing to Judge Zloch:

The judge told Spolter he could mitigate the sanctions if the lawyer bought a full-page, court-approved advertisement in the Review apologizing for his previous position.

Zloch did not return a call for comment by deadline. At the August hearing, he said federal case law gives him the authority to disbar Spolter.

Spolter's attorney said it's just a matter of having someone to bounce ideas off of:

“He had his views, he has in his own mind, bought into them, and he had no one to bounce off to give him a reality check,” Reinhardt told Zloch during the hearing. “He’s conceded he was wrong. He withdrew his motions.”

Zloch said Spolter’s statistical expert recanted his position at Rosenbaum’s hearing. The statistician had said it was nearly impossible for Spolter’s cases to randomly end up with Zloch only to be dismissed.

That’s when Spolter stood up and said the judge was wrong.

“The expert just called me up last week and spoke to me about this case again, and he said to me that he stood by his testimony,” Spolter said.

Oy.

Mr. Spolter, you have a lawyer. He is trying to save your tuches. Don't stand up before Judge Zloch in the middle of his argument and tell the judge he's wrong. That's a very good example of where you might want to bounce that idea off of your lawyer first.

Unfortunately, some ideas persist even where facts stand in the way.

In an otherwise fascinating article on the Perry/Cook North Pole debate, I came across this little nugget:

When we contemplate contradictions in the rhetoric of the opposition party’s candidate, the rational centers of our brains are active, but contradictions from our own party’s candidate set off a different reaction: the emotional centers light up and levels of feel-good dopamine surge.

With our rational faculties muted, sometimes the unwelcome evidence doesn’t even register, and sometimes we use marvelous logic to get around the facts.

In one study, Republicans who blamed Saddam Hussein for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were presented with strong counterevidence, including a statement from President George W. Bush absolving Hussein. But most of the people in the study went on blaming Hussein anyway, as the researchers report in the current issue of Sociological Inquiry.

Some of the people ignored or rejected the counterevidence; some “counterargued” that Hussein was evil enough to do it; some flatly said they were entitled to counterfactual opinions. And some came up with an especially creative form of motivated reasoning that the psychologists labeled “inferred justification”: because the United States went to war against Hussein, the reasoning went, it must therefore have been provoked by his attack on Sept. 11.

Who was the smart guy who said facts are stubborn things?