Social media movements are again being discussed as possible pivotal evidence in a high-profile murder case, this time with a defense lawyer claiming Twitter updates prove his client’s self-defense claim.

18-year-old Shanterrica Madden stands accused of the murder of her 21-year-old college roommate, Tina Stewart. Madden’s lawyer Joe Brandon, Jr., believes that social media activity detailing the ongoing conflict will prove that it’s “undisputed” that the victim “started the fight and it’s just an unfortunate series of events that follows.” Said Brandon:

“It’s one of the first times as a defense lawyer that I have seen it come into play,” said attorney Joe Brandon. “I’m keen on it. This supports fully our defense of self-defense. It’s critical.”

Benjamin Holden is the director of the Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media as well as a professor of media law at the University of Nevada, Reno. Holden said the introduction of social media evidence is a massive complication as courts work to catch up to technology:

“It’s extremely complicating. It broadens the arena of evidentiary opportunity, evidentiary pieces, to an almost limitless scope… The legal team with the best geek squad wins — that may be the future of litigation.”

While a fortuitous status update or location-aware app could certainly work in an individual’s favor, evidence gleaned from sites like Facebook is not always useful in building a defense. Local District Attorney General Kim Helper admitted the prosecution often “scours” social networking sites to gather evidence against a defendant:

“Definitely in terms of evidentiary issues, we’re seeing a lot of it, and a lot of it is beneficial to the state,” Helper said. “I tell juveniles all the time, ‘If you don’t want someone to read it, don’t put it out there.’ The same thing goes across the board whether you’re a prosecutor, juror, witness, defendant.”

The issue does indeed span all aspects of a court’s reach. The integrity of a jury or juror has been called into question on more than one occasion, and the New York State Bar even published an opinion last year on the ethics of gathering evidence via social media. (It was basically decided that entirely public evidence should be admissible, but “friending” an individual to gain access to their semi-private information should not.) A New York teen was saved from jail when a status update proved his innocence. (The status? “Where’s my pancakes?”) Matrimonial lawyers have even gone so far as to call Facebook and its ilk an “evidentiary goldmine” in gathering evidence for divorce cases, and it has been claimed more than once that 20% of divorces now mention Facebook in filings.

The lasting implications for this are fascinating and scary- kind of like watching a big, real-life episode of Law and Order SVU. It could be the wind up that innocence is more often proven early rather than later in a case, with services like Foursquare providing alibis, or it could be that the future is an Orwellian nightmare in which not one iota of your life is private if you happen to rely on digital means of communication. Do you think the introduction of social media evidence stands to do more harm or good to the criminal justice system from an individual’s standpoint?

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Is evidence gathered from social media the “future of litigation?” is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Harlem teen managed to save his own posterior legally with a three word Facebook status update. (“Where’s my pancakes?”)

Rodney Bradford, a 19-year-old resident of Farragut Houses, posted the seemingly inconsequential update from his dad’s apartment at 11:49am on October 17th. In a refreshing twist, rather than coming back to get him arrested, fired or sued for paternity, Bradford’s words managed to keep him out of jail. On the 18th, Bradford was arrested for burglary and wound up finding Facebook to be his sink or swim alibi.

Up until now, we’ve mainly seen Facebook used legally against a defendant, such as the burglar that couldn’t keep his thieving hands off the site while committing a crime and later ended up in jail because of it. A legal consultant told the Times that this is the first time he’s aware of where a status update has been used to extricate a suspect from further trouble rather than land him further in it.

While the defense concedes that someone other than Bradford could have posted the update using Bradford’s logins, it was argued that it required a level of forethought and malice unlikely present in the defendant:

“This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil,” Mr. Reuland said, adding that the Facebook entry was just “the icing on the cake,” since his client had the other alibis.

The judge and DA agreed, and charges were dropped against the teen. Bradford says:

As for those pancakes: “I used to really like them,” Mr. Bradford said. “Now I love ‘em.”

[NYT via Gizmodo]

Facebook update saves teen from jail is a post from: The Inquisitr