In what could signal a worrying trend, some US prosecution and defence lawyers have discovered that social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace may provide valuable clues about the personality of a particular Jury person. The legal eagles have admitted to the Wall Street Journal that they actively search through Jury members social networking profiles in the hope of finding those whom could be considered more (or less) sympathetic during a trial and therefore, potentially easier to manipulate.
Fortunately, most people’s Facebook accounts are locked and don’t tell you anything interesting without first being ‘friended’. However, that hasn’t stopped certain clever-dick lawyers and prosecutors from trying less obvious ways to procure the information they seek:
“Mr. Villalobos is considering a method to get behind the site’s private wall to learn more. One option: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court’s wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily “friending” his office.”
Let’s just hope the trend doesn’t make its way over to Australia.
[Via WSJ]
Dr_Colossus
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 9:51 AMHow do they find the jury member’s facebook profile? Does that mean they know the jury’s names? I’ve been on a Jury in Australia and no one in the court (not even the sheriffs) knew what our names were.
Paul
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 11:43 AMFind what I gather there is a pool of jurors and both sides, prosecutor and defence, question the potenial jurors than have limited number of oppurtunities where they can reject that member before the trial starts. Than finally the jury is selected from the smaller pool.
simon c
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 4:03 PMreason #293 not be on facebook. facebook, creating unfair trials since 2011.
other reasons not to be on facebook
1) potential job loss
2) potential insurance money loss
bother have happened before