Bank surveillance footage showed that the man robbing a bank on September 9, 2008, was wearing a yellow rain hat similar to the hat found in Bari’s landlord’s garbage. New York Judge Denny Chin decided to do a Google search to determine the variety of yellow rain hats available.

 

The question of whether it was permissible for Chin to use the Internet came up during Bari’s appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate judges ruled: “As broadband speeds increase and Internet search engines improve, the cost of confirming one’s intuitions decreases. Twenty years ago, to confirm an intuition about the variety of rain hats, a trial judge may have needed to travel to a local department store to survey the rain hats on offer. Rather than expend that time, he likely would have relied on his common sense to take judicial notice of the fact that not all rain hats are alike. Today, however, a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search.”

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Court's Google Search Did Not Violate Evidence Rules, 2nd Circuit Says (by Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal)

Appeals Court Backs Judge's Google Search (by Annie Youderian, Courthouse News Service)

United States v. Anthony Bari (U.S. Court of Appeals, Second District) (pdf)