The opinion of the California Court of Appeals began by succinctly stating there are limits to what a trial judge can do:
An attorney’s website advertised her success in two cases raising issues similar to those she was about to try here. The trial court admonished the jury not to “Google” the attorneys or to read any articles about the case or anyone involved in it. Concerned that a juror might ignore these admonitions, the court ordered the attorney to remove for duration of trial two pages from her website discussing the similar cases. We conclude this was an unlawful prior restraint on the attorney’s free speech rights under the First Amendment. Whether analyzed under the strict scrutiny standard or the lesser standard for commercial speech, the order was more extensive than necessary to advance the competing public interest in assuring a fair trial. Juror admonitions and instructions, such as those given here, were the presumptively adequate means of addressing the threat of jury contamination in this case.
The full opinion is here.