Is misinformed commentary on the justice system on the rise, or am I just noticing it more?

At the start of February, I caught a snippet of a discussion between on Twitter that got me worried about our jury system. It started with an opinion on arson in the bushfire season:

it’s way worse than that, it truly is murder especially when they know the weather conditions & what the results of action will be

and developed into an explanation of ‘intent’ in criminal law.

Later in the month, Laurel Papworth and David Galbally QC appeared on Sunrise to discuss discussions about the guy charged with arson on Facebook. Her post on the spot came with a kick:

The community will resolve it’s own issues, in it’s own way, thank you very much.

It was enough to make me almost choke on the cornflakes when I read that view on the friction between the legal system and online discussions. I had a momentary flash of a mob with pitchforks, torches aflame, oh and laptops and smartphones of course. The revolution will not be televised, it looks like it’ll be organised through a Facebook Event, then blogged and tweeted and livestreamed.

Was Papworth advocating mob justice? Really? Just when it looked like she was auditioning for the part of go-to ‘internet expert’ for A Current Affair and Today Tonight, Jonathan Crossfield picked her up on the line and she went on to clarify her position in comment discussion. It’s an important discussion, so I’m glad to see it being picked up by others following on from the Sunrise spot. Steven Lewis’ post and the comments on it are all worth reading.

One comment on Papworth’s post suggested that the QC involved in the debate should take one of her seminars on social media. Maybe he & a whole lot of legal and legislative people should, but such understanding should be a two way deal; I’d suggest a whole lot of IT commentators, ‘online evangelists’, ‘social media mavens’, ‘digital anthropologists / sociologists’ and the like should take some remedial legal courses (high school legal studies may suffice). I know some cases will attract a lot of emotional commentary, but I reckon it’s pretty important for folk to understand how & why our legal system has developed the way it has before declaring it irrelevant and advocating radical change.  Crossfield’s Silence in Court – Five Internet Legal Myths Dispelled piece would be a good place to start.