Appeals Court Backs Judge’s Google Search

Courthouse News – “A federal judge’s use of Google to confirm his intuition was not “reversible error,” the 2nd Circuit ruled, saying the Internet has changed how we validate common sense. “As the cost of confirming one’s intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that,” the three-judge panel wrote. The Manhattan-based appeals court declined to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who said he “did a Google search” to confirm that “there are also lots of different rain hats … that one could buy.”

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