Social Networking and Its Affect on the Criminal Justice System

 

For quite sometime, I have written about the consequences of social networking in the criminal justice system. Within recent times, there have been some remarkable developments on this issue.

A week or so ago, a judge granted a mistrial in a drug prosecution in Florida when he learned that nine jurors were conducting online research relating to issues developed in the case.

On Monday, a defense attorney in a federal corruption trial involving a senator from Pennsylvania requested a mistrial because a juror posted updates of the case on Twitter and Facebook.

Last week, a civil litigant sought to overturn a $12.6 million dollar judgment because a juror used Twitter to post developments in the case.

As a result of these newfound problems, trial judges are now amending their instructions to jurors to specifically address internet researching and social networking exchanges.