In a ruling that seems to confirm common sense, a federal appeals court said it is acceptable for a judge to conduct an Internet search to confirm an intuition about a matter of … common knowledge.

The ruling came down Monday from the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York and encouraged more Internet queries by judges — and not just in criminal cases.

The case that spawned the ruling concerned an Internet search performed by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who reviewed several pieces of evidence, including a bank surveillance video showing a robber who wore a yellow rain hat. A yellow rain hat was found in the garage of Bari’s landlord.

Prosecutors alleged that Anthony Bari, who served 12 years in prison for bank robbery, violated terms of his release by robbing a separate Bronx bank clad in the yellow cap.

“We did a Google search,” Chin said. “One can Google yellow rain hats and find lots of different yellow rain hats,” he said.

Considering all of the evidence, Chin found the government met its burden of showing Bari violated his supervised release terms. He sentenced the defendant to three years in prison.

Bari appealed the ruling, based on what he said was Chin violating a federal evidence rule that bars a presiding judge from testifying as a witness by verifying a fact, using the Internet, “whose answer was not obvious.”

The court said the search was legal, saying another rule lets judges note facts “not subject to reasonable dispute” and which can be learned from accurate sources.

Using this “relaxed” standard, it endorsed Chin’s effort to confirm his “common sense supposition” that more than one yellow rain hat is available for sale.

But the ruling went even further, saying improved Internet speeds and search engine technology cuts the cost of confirming intuitions.

“Today … a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search,” the ruling said. “As the cost of confirming one’s intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that.”

“With the expediency and accuracy of web-based resource materials this seems like the logical next step in insuring proper outcomes result where a judicial officer has a verifiable hunch about something, in this case the variety of yellow rain hats,”  says Stephen Mancini, head of KMFM’s criminal defense practice group.

David Hammer, one of Bari’s lawyers, said he was surprised “at the reasoning, which seems to authorize judges to use the Internet without any clear rules.

“As I [read the ruling] it could apply in any context where the normal rules of evidence are not strictly applied,” Hammer said.

The case is U.S. v. Bari, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 09-1074. Judge Chin has been nominated by President Obama to fill a vacant seat on the Second Circuit.

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