Jury Fail Whale

Being a courtroom sketch artist or stenographer is one thing, live-tweeting a trial in which you’re a part of the body that decides whether or not a person’s freedom is granted or taken away is another.  A new memo sent out to judges across the nation by the Judicial Conference of the United States specifies sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook as well as devices like Blackberries and iPhones, advising that more explicit instructions need to be given to “address the increasing incidence of juror use of such devices as cellular telephones or computers, to conduct research on the internet or communicate with others about cases.”

Everyone knows that they’re not supposed to talk about cases they’re part of the jury for, just like everyone knows you’re not supposed to send naked pictures of yourself to people you’re probably going to break up with sooner or later, but the anonymity and accessibility of the internet, coupled with the perceived privacy, make it all too easy for jurors to become chatty cathy’s and bump their online gums.  Those “I’m so bored” updates can be slippery slopes ending up in mistrials, i.e. wastes of taxpayer dollars, though it would be pretty funny to see “OMG, the judge is yelling at me” on our friends’ timelines.

[via Threat Level]