Social Media & the Courts

With Ryan Widmer appealing his murder conviction in the 2008 drowning of his newlywed wife, a recent Cincinnati.com article notes, "the controversy over a juror's use of Facebook during the trial could end up forging new case law or court rules, experts say -- and presents another example of courts struggling to keep up with technology."

"Thomas S. Hodson, an Ohio University journalism professor who also spent 20 years as a lawyer and 10 years as a judge, said Ohio's sample jury instructions, just revamped last year to tell jurors they cannot comment about pending trials on social media, may not go far enough," according to the article. "Maybe in this age of constant conversation, those instructions need to be broadened to include prohibitions about using social media as both a research tool and a discussion venue."

In a release last May, the American Bar Association stated of their new model jury instructions, that they "admonish jurors not to obtain any information from outside sources including the Internet, reference books, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, a computer, a Blackberry, iPhone, smart phone, and any other electronic device, and further admonishes jurors not to send or receive e-mails, use Twitter, text messages or similar updates, blogs and chat rooms, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social media sites of any kind to obtain information regarding the trial."

While jury instructions vary both by state & court in their particulars, there is already a fair amount of material being generated on the relationship between social media & the courts. The National Center for State Courts has set up a "resource center" that includes discussions of recent case law that has been impacted by the online behavior of jurors.

Also of interest might be Ken Strutin's two articles on the "Emerging Legal Issues in Social Media" (Part 1)(Part 2) on LLRX.com