this safeguard instruction is an anachronism.
***You have to be careful about identifying or labelling anachronisms. The MSM considers gun ownership an anachronism. Libtards consider fair trials to be one. Biden consider’s Kyle’s right to a fair trial to be one.
Good point. But a smartphone as a gateway for information from the world is so ubiquitous that asking people to put it down just because they are jurors is not realistic. Let's say a lawyer argues that evidence should be admitted because it is part of the res gesture, and just like anyone would in real life, they Google "res gestae." Does the juror get booted for that? And then you give the lawyers another tool to skew the composition of the sitting jury to their side? So maybe if you become a juror, all of your page views and conversations with anybody should be recorded? This is why this type of instruction, as much of a good and effective safeguard it is, is becoming to be viewed as an anachronism.