It was only a matter of time but now it seems that Twitter and Facebook are starting to interfere with the wheels of justice. And once more, it raises a whole bunch of questions about privacy.
Associated Press reports that a California judge has ordered a juror to turn over Facebook messages he posted during the trial of several alleged gang members. The defense team wants to know if he was influenced by outside communications. This follows reports that tweeting, texting and Facebooking jurors are conducting independent research outside the evidence presented in court. Jurors are supposed to only consider the information presented in court. If that trend continues, we can expect lots of mistrials.
Then we have the report from the Houston Chronicle on how a District Attorney in Texas is checking out prospective jurors' Facebook profiles and postings when considering whether they are qualified to sit on a jury.
All this goes to the issue of privacy and people's rights to post material without it being used later against them. But it also tells us that the court systems will need to start looking at the impact of social networking on trials and litigation before it's too late.
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