Be careful what you post on your social media networks - it could cause you your job or land you in jail.
Earlier this month, a 20 year old juror (Hadley Jons) from Detroit posted "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty" as her facebook status when the defense lawyer's son discovered it. The next day, the juror was confronted by the judge (Diane Druzinski) and immediately replaced by a different juror.
While she was not fined or incarcerated, the defending lawyer (Saleema Sheikh) did provide the following statement: "I would like to see her get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight. This is the jury system. People need to know how important it is." The court still ruled in favor of the prosecutor in the end, but it just goes to show you, anything you put up on the web is visible by anyone.
On a slightly related note, sports writer Mike Wise was suspended from his position with the Washington Post for the duration of one month. The reason? He tweeted a story that Pittsburgh Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger (who has been accused of sexually assaulting a Georgia college student) would get a five-game suspension. Other news outlets immediately picked up the story and ran with it. Just one problem... The story was made up by Wise to prove a point: No one checks the facts for themselves these days when reporting.
While he made his point (and was quite correct in his reasoning), the Post only saw his violation of social media policy and suspended him. He issued an apology later but maintained that he "was right about nobody checking facts or sourcing."
Social media members, post with care.
Earlier this month, a 20 year old juror (Hadley Jons) from Detroit posted "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty" as her facebook status when the defense lawyer's son discovered it. The next day, the juror was confronted by the judge (Diane Druzinski) and immediately replaced by a different juror.
While she was not fined or incarcerated, the defending lawyer (Saleema Sheikh) did provide the following statement: "I would like to see her get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight. This is the jury system. People need to know how important it is." The court still ruled in favor of the prosecutor in the end, but it just goes to show you, anything you put up on the web is visible by anyone.
On a slightly related note, sports writer Mike Wise was suspended from his position with the Washington Post for the duration of one month. The reason? He tweeted a story that Pittsburgh Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger (who has been accused of sexually assaulting a Georgia college student) would get a five-game suspension. Other news outlets immediately picked up the story and ran with it. Just one problem... The story was made up by Wise to prove a point: No one checks the facts for themselves these days when reporting.
While he made his point (and was quite correct in his reasoning), the Post only saw his violation of social media policy and suspended him. He issued an apology later but maintained that he "was right about nobody checking facts or sourcing."
Social media members, post with care.