I believe that while a juror can't question a witness directly a juror can send a message to the judge requesting clarification of a point or points. The judge is then free to either deny the request, make his / her own clarification, or question a witness (dismissed witnesses could be recalled - that's part of why they're not supposed to discuss the case with other witnesses) on behalf of the juror.

This isn't something a juror should use for trivia (e.g. Were the victim's pink toenails painted Salmon Pink or Shocking Pink ?). Rather, one should go after something like an expert witness failing to mention IBM's CP/65 or VM/370 in a case about first-to-invent of PC-level virtualization (porting a pre-copyright version of VM/370 to x86 could serve as a starting point).

I would be very surprised if there were NO cases on record of a judge sanctioning both parties to a suit for being idiots with the judicial notice (caught his/her attention) being triggered by a juror's message.

MB94128

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