Ex parte 1: Crowdsourcing, standards of proof, search engines?

Term: ex parte. Refers to some kinds circumstances related to a legal proceding which occur outside the formal process of the court hearing the matter. See Black's law dictionary for more thorough definition.

RantWoman notes the following example of digital inclusion gone awry, jurors supplementing what is heard in court with Google via Smartphone:
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022703634_jurorsinternetxml.html

RantWoman is NOT charmed by this story on multiple grounds:

--A sexual assault survivor has to retell her story after she has probably already told it multiple times.

--One or more interpreters gets to interpret the whole trial again. Can you say vicarious trauma?

At the same time, RantWoman can see a juror, any juror having trouble deciding "beyond a reasonable doubt" without having questions answered. The problem is that the proper thing to do wit hquestions from a jury is to send them to a judge, not to Google. RantWoman things it is interesting to consider whether court rules SHOULD provide some pathway to refer to Google

RantWoman thinks for a number of reasons it would be best to STOP here until she has time to thing through many issues and simply note the issue of ex parte internet searches with interest.