It is always an event when the Lord Chief Justice reveals his views on the judicial system and so it was when the new holder of the office, Lord Judge of Draycote, addressed the University of Hertfordshire on 4 November. The title of his speech was “The Criminal Justice system in England and Wales – time for change?” and the full text can be found at http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/speeches/lcj-speech-uni-hertfordshire-041108.pdf

Among many aspects considered was the relationship between the internet and the jury system. Lord Judge’s concerns are twofold. Firstly the availability of the internet to jurors. At the outset of a trial, judges direct the jury not to look at the internet in connection with the trial. They must reach their verdict only on the basis of what they hear in the courtroom. But, inevitably, from time to time an individual juror will disregard the direction and make his own private enquiries. Lord Judge referred specifically to a recent case when a juror went online using a Blackberry during a rape case, causing the conviction to be quashed. And he is not just concerned with today, “but the technology which will be available to our successors in, say, 2020 or 2025. I cannot begin to imagine the extent of the changes which lie ahead.”

His second concern is the extent to which internet culture is inimical to the traditional jury system. “Our system of jury trials depends on twelve good men and women and true coming to court and listening to the case. Orality is the crucial ingredient of the adversarial system. Witness speak and answer questions. Counsel speak and address the jury. Judges speak and give directions.” He described how the young get much information from the internet, how they consult and refer to it. “They are not listening. They are reading.” The potential problem he identifies is whether, learning as they do in this way, they will be accustomed to listening for prolonged periods. “What will happen to our oral tradition? Should it, will it, be forced to change?”

Writing in “The Guardian” Marcel Berlins wonders if the jury system can survive the internet. Accepting the validity of Lord Judge’s observations, he points out that although members of the internet generation are currently in the minority of today’s juries, progress is relentless, and it will not be long before they start to dominate them. He poses the question “what can be done to convey the evidence during a trial in a more palatable way, without destroying the essence of the jury system?”

Neither he nor the Lord Chief Justice (“I do not have solutions”) come up with answers.

One of my mother’s sayings was “cold hands, warm heart”. Now it looks as if that is in doubt, as American academics have set out to prove my mother wrong by testing the impact of warmth on the perceptions of adults.

A high powered team, led by John Bargh, Professor of Social Psychology at Yale University, in cooperation with Assistant Professor Lawrence Williams at Boulder University of Colarado, have been addressing the theory that our judgment of a person’s character can be influenced by something as simple as the warmth of the drink we hold in our hand. They set about testing whether hot and iced drinks influenced perceptions of others after noting how frequently “warm” and “cold” are used to describe personalities.

The methodology consisted of two separate experiments. For the first experiment, 41 undergraduate students were casually asked to hold a hot or cold cup of coffee for a moment. The students weren’t aware that holding the cup was part of the experiment. They were then given a brief fictional description of a person and asked to rate 10 personality traits based on this summary. Those who held hot cups were more likely to assign positive “warmer” traits to the fictional person than those who held the cold cups. The second experiment was presented as a product evaluation study, in which 53 participants were asked to hold hot or cold therapeutic pads for a moment and then judge the quality of the product. At the end of the test, as a reward for their participation, they could choose either a reward for themselves or a voucher to give to a friend. Among those who handled a hot therapeutic pad, 54% chose the voucher for a friend, compared with 25% of those who held the cold pad.

Reporting the experiments in a recent edition of “Science”, Professor Bargh writes “It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well. Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer – more generous and trusting – as well.” Let Assistant Professor Williams have the last word. “In a point-of-service or communications interaction, paying attention to the fact that customers are tied to the physical world in which buying behavior occurs is important. If you are running a promotion outdoors on a cold day, maybe giving away a warm cookie will help you make connections with consumers. It gives marketers and managers more tools to work with.”

So now you know. My mother would have taken some convincing about all this.

A new bare-headed look will prevail from October 1 when judges hearing civil and family cases in England and Wales consign their 300-year-old horsehair headgear to history. From the autumn, most judges will adopt a simple continental-style black gown. The new robe has coloured bands to indicate seniority, with heads of the high court’s four divisions and appeal court judges wearing gold bands and high court judges wearing red. Judges will no longer wear wing collars and bands for civil and family proceedings.

According to Clare Dyer, legal editor of the “Guardian”, the move has been pushed through by the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, “who has long believed that judges’ fusty headgear and antiquated garments should be consigned to the dressing-up box. He and his recent predecessors have argued that the outdated apparel contributes to public attitudes that the judges are out of touch with ordinary life. But he failed to convince judges hearing criminal cases, who claim that wigs add to the dignity of proceedings and confer an anonymity which stops villains recognising them out of court.” Wigs will continue to be worn by high court judges and circuit judges presiding over criminal cases. Circuit judges will lose their wigs for civil cases but will retain their current gown and tippet rather than moving to the new robe.

When he decided to simplify judges’ garb, the lord chief justice expected barristers to follow suit. But the profession has been fighting to retain its traditional wig and gown. The Bar Council has twice consulted with its grassroots and has still not announced whether it intends to come into line with the judges. The consultation has revealed that well over half want to keep their traditional dress for cases in the House of Lords, court of appeal and high court.

Judges in the House of Lords may adopt a simple black gown when it becomes the supreme court in October 2009.