Federal Judicial Center Reports on Juror Social Media Issues

NetworkWorld Blogger/Attorney, Michael Cooney posted an article on January 25, 2012 about the release of a US Federal Judicial Center report titled "Juror's Use of Social Media During Trials and Deliberations" (PDF).


A truly surprising part of the report included this following paragraph:

"Of the 17 judges who described the type of social media use jurors engaged in during  trials  and  deliberations,  three  judges  reported  that  a  juror  “friended”  or attempted to “friend” one or more participants in the case, and three reported that a juror communicated or attempted to communicate directly with participants in the case (see Table 3).While three judges reported that jurors used social media to post  information  about  a  deliberation,  none  of  the  responding  judges  reported any  instance  in  which  a  juror  used  social  media  to  divulge  confidential  information about a case. One judge did report, however, that a juror revealed identifying information about other jurors. Judges could select “other” as an option for identifying additional ways in which jurors inappropriately used social media; the eleven who did listed case-related research (five judges), sharing general trial information such as the progress of the case (four judges), allowing another person to  listen  to  live  testimony  (one  judge)  and  conducting  personal  business  (one judge)."  

And interestingly, other parts of the report discussed strategies for preventing juror's use of social media including several jury instruction examples from federal judges.

This is a recommended read!