As Caryn Tamber reported today, we can no longer tweet from within the courtroom at the Dixon trial. That doesn’t mean the tweets have been silenced, though; they’ve just moved down the hall. You can still watch for updates on www.twitter.com  by “following” @mddailyrecord, or just search for #DixonTrial.

This morning, for example, we learned that “things [were] getting a little out of order” in the jury room last night, and the jurors continue to correspond with the judge seeking clarifications on points of law or, at least, a legal dictionary. (Don’t worry, the judge nixed THAT idea.) What do you think — does this bode well for the prosecution or the defense?

Happy Monday!

• An innocent man from Baltimore has been in prison for more than 25 years, writes Dan Rodricks.
• Should jurors get to ask questions at trial?
• Are you an unemployed attorney? Sue your law school!
• New projections say the legal market has stabilized and will grow 3 percent next year.
• This sounds like a distasteful and offensive way to market your legal services, but does it merit sanctions?
• Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick summarizes each Judiciary Committee member’s vote on Sotomayor–in haiku. Awesome.

Happy Monday! Here are some law links to start your week:

• If you think Sonia Sotomayor is bad, you should see Andre Davis, writes Byron York of the Examiner. (Though the Examiner identifies York as its “chief political correspondent,” a term that to this journalist implies that he’s a reporter, make no mistake: he’s definitely a columnist, and he used to work for the National Review.)
• Stereotypes about jurors will only get you so far, The Sun’s Tricia Bishop writes.
• Constance Camus has a post about a battered woman whose husband trashed their home and everything in it. The woman sought help from many agencies but was turned down everywhere.
• Venable helped pay for the new prairie dog exhibit at the Maryland Zoo. There’s a joke in here somewhere…
• Check out these 18 on-screen courtroom moments that would never happen in real life. Which is your favorite?
• A law firm in Cincinnati has instituted an associate apprentice program, where new associates will earn less money, undergo training and have their time billed at a lower rate. HT: Above the Law.

Happy Monday!

• Paul Mark Sandler asks if it’s time to rethink the standard voir dire questions now that it’s apparently routine for jurors to look up cases on the Internet.
• Check out this blog post about the failings of a breath test device.
• Which past cases or positions from the various SCOTUS short-listers could hurt their chances of confirmation?
• Conservatives should stop their phony outrage over Obama’s desire for a justice with empathy, says Dahlia Lithwick. HT: How Appealing.
• This blog post is titled, “Solo, The Last Refuge of Incompetence?” Yeah, I’m thinking it’ll stir people up.

There’s a recession angle for every story, it seems. The features I find for our Web site lately are overwhelmingly about another way the recession has negatively impacted people.

Here’s another impact, one that might be causing headaches for trial lawyers and judges out there: supposedly it’s getting harder to find jurors, especially for trials longer than one day.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel says that the number of jurors asking to be excused “because of economic pressures” is increasing across the nation. Understandably, people are worried that extended time away from work could cost them their jobs.

Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld told the paper, “They feel very insecure about their job status and there are those who say, “So many people have been laid off where I work, they can’t do without me.”

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute points out that civic duty doesn’t pay very well, either – sometimes lower than $10 a day. If the potential juror is not a salaried employee, being seated on a lengthy trial could result in a significant income loss.

Have you seen this happening in area courts?

I used my Twitter account for the first time last week while covering the Exxon verdict in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Turns out I chose to start using the “micro-blogging” site (which limits entries to 140 characters or less) just as ”tweets” in the legal process were making headlines.

Earlier this month, a federal judge allowed a reporter in Kansas to “tweet” from a federal racketeering gang trial. Lawyers were worried jurors would read the posts, but a federal judge ruled jurors are already told to avoid news accounts of their trial, and Twitter would be no exception.

Then, on Friday, an Arkansas company said it would appeal a $12.6 million verdict because a juror tweeted during the trial. One of the posts read: “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

The company’s lawyer said the messages demonstrate the juror “was predisposed toward giving a verdict that would impress his audience.”

All of this Twitter talk makes arguments about cameras in the courtroom seem kind of quaint, don’t you think?

Bad luck: a jury duty summons.

Worse luck: two jury duty summonses from two different jurisdictions.

Even worse luck: two jury duty summonses from two different jurisdictions showing up in your mailbox the same day.

You’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me luck: two jury duty summonses from two different jurisdictions showing up in your mailbox the same day, asking you to appear in court on the same day.

Looks like my husband got on the bad side of the jury duty gods. I say the city and the feds should duel at high noon for the honor of his presence.

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

You’ll probably always have to report in person for jury duty if summoned, barring some Jetsons-style technological breakthrough. But Baltimore County Circuit Court has recently moved to turning much of the paperwork surrounding a jury summons into a paperless – and hopefully, therefore, painless – process.

The county has established a Web site where potential jurors can “verify their eligibility, confirm their appearance date, or get immediate confirmation of a new date if they need to reschedule,” according to a news release.

Court officials say a quarter of potential jurors are now responding to a summons online, helping reduce the 100,000 pieces of paper processed annually by the Office of the Jury Commissioner. Approximately 2,000 jury summonses and notices are processed each week, according to the court.

The county’s court system is the first in Maryland to use the online software, which cost $200,000.

I could not review the online services because I do not currently have a jury summons, but I imagine a few clicks of the mouse is preferable to waiting in person or going through multiple phone call transfers. Can anyone out there provide a review?

DANNY JACOBS, Legal Affairs Writer

The Chicago Tribune ran a story the other day on jury selection in the R. Kelly child pornography trial, cataloguing the reasons why prospective jurors were not picked. Among the highlights:

• Two people (the reporter doesn’t say what gender they were, but shall we guess?) opined that if they were in charge, they would lower the age of consent. One said that “nature” already has an age of consent: “puberty.”

• One lady proclaimed Kelly a “musical genius.”

• One man said, “R. Kelly may have led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11, but you can’t prove it.” Writes the Tribune: “You’re right, we can’t. In fact, we’re fairly certain that no one has ever tried.”

Anybody out there ever given or heard a unique excuse for getting out of jury duty? (I think I sense a future Interrogatory here…)

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

Trial lawyer/jury consultant Anne Reed offers this tasty morsel for trial lawyers (and anyone else who feels duty-bound to repeat themselves): “The Jelly Bean theory of keeping jurors’ attention.”

“When you need jurors to understand new and complicated facts or concepts, you have a problem:  you need to repeat the material more than once, but when you do, you’re punished for it,” the Milwaukee-based Reed posts on the blog of our sister paper, the Wisconsin Law Journal. “A new and seemingly unrelated study suggests a path between the rock and the hard place.”

In essence, study participants were asked to eat a jelly bean; actually, 22 jelly beans, one by one. Those who were asked to eat “a” jelly bean quickly got bored, but those who were asked to eat, say, a “cherry” jelly bean, followed by a “tangerine” jelly bean, then a peach or strawberry jelly bean, cleaned their plates and were ready for more.

The study’s author, Joseph P. Redden at the University of Minnesota, calls this “categorization.” Reed calls them “segments” and says: “Jurors think in segments anyway, so the simple act of dividing the material up will help them absorb it.  If you label the segments too, they might even start looking forward to the parts of the trial where you’re the one standing up.”

If Reed is right, the devil may not be the only thing in the details. The key to your next win could be lurking there, as well.

BARBARA GRZINCIC, Managing Editor/Law