Arturo Ramirez was just posting his own opinion on his own Facebook page. He was just exercising his rights to free speech.
The only problem is, Americans don’t have a 100 percent promise of 100 percent free speech 100 percent of the time — and they never had.
The difference is that in the past Americans learned a tiny bit about government and civics in school and by the time they were legally adults they had some background in this subject. Now it’s amazing they can even post on Facebook, let alone master the advanced thinking that is involved in understanding their responsibility as citizens.
But Ramirez got an advanced lesson recently when a judge in California took him to task for posting messages on the Internet site while he was sitting on a jury that was to deliberate on a gang-related crime.
How posting on the Internet could possibly be different from any other inappropriate communication, carried out while a juror was sworn is hard to understand.
The Associated Press coverage of the incident noted that Ramirez could face jail time if he doesn’t cooperate with Facebook providing the needed information to the court.
What is amazing is that there could be any way the juror would not face some sort of legal punishment for what has already been done.
— Chuck Smith