The Federal Judicial Center
has released a study which
concludes that "detected social media use by jurors is
infrequent, and that most judges have taken steps to ensure jurors do
not use social media in the courtroom," and implies that juror use of
the Internet and social media during trial is not a growing problem.
Alison Frankel of Thompson-Reuters is skeptical about this conclusion, and I agree with her.
The FJC report was based on a survey e-mailed to all active and senior federal judges in October 2011. Of the 952 judges who received the survey, 508 responded – a response rate of 53 percent – from all 94 federal districts.
Of the 508 judges who responded, only 30 (six percent) said that they had experienced jurors using social media during trials and deliberations. Most (23 judges) had seen this during trial, rather than deliberations (12 judges), and judges reported seeing such activity more often in criminal cases (22 judges) than in civil cases (five judges). Three judges had experience with jurors using social media during both criminal and civil cases. Only two had experienced this in more than two cases of either type. read more »

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A few weeks ago,
The Arkansas Supreme Court has reversed
a murder conviction – and death sentence – in a case where one juror
tweeted during trial, while another fell asleep. Both these problems,
the court said, constituted juror misconduct requiring reversal and a
new trial.
There's been a lot of buzz online (and now
The Blog of the Legal Times reports
After a slow start, the latest experiment of video cameras in federal courtrooms,
Basketball Wives: Los Angeles
It lacks the drama of the various flavors of "
Social media are abuzz about English Premier League footballer
("soccer player" to us Yanks) Ryan Giggs, who has obtained an order from a British
court requiring Twitter to reveal the identity of various tweeters who
identified him as having had an affair with model and Big Brother
contestant Imogen Thomas.
The regulation of commercial speech on social media sites continues to increase. In late March, a federal court in California held that Facebook postings fit within the definition of "commercial electronic mail message" under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited
Pornography and Marketing Act ("CAN-SPAM Act;"
The
The Federal Trade Commission
CMLP contributor Eric P. Robinson and 


