{"id":2204,"date":"2013-11-19T17:06:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T17:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2204"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","slug":"nondisclosure-of-juror-facebook-friendships-cause-for-retrial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/nondisclosure-of-juror-facebook-friendships-cause-for-retrial\/","title":{"rendered":"Nondisclosure of Juror Facebook Friendships: Cause for Retrial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, by Benjamin Szany
\nThe dynamics between jurors and social media is not a new concern for the American judiciary. The legal system has dealt with jurors learning \u201cfacts\u201d about their case from social media<\/a>, jurors publishing insights regarding their case on social media<\/a>, and jurors accessing social media in the courtroom during trial<\/a>.
\nRecently, a defendant in Missouri challenged a juror non-disclosure of a Facebook friendship. The defendant, convicted on several sexual assault counts, filed a motion for a new trial. The trial court denied the motion, and the appeal went to the Missouri Court of Appeals<\/a> for the Eastern District. The defendant claimed the juror, Rolfes, failed to disclose to the court the existence of a Facebook friendship<\/a> between Rolfes and the victim\u2019s mother, amounting to juror misconduct requiring a new trial.
\nDuring the jury selection process, Rolfes had acknowledged that he recognized the victim\u2019s mother. When asked by the litigants about the nature of his relationship with the victim\u2019s mother, he responded that he knew the victim\u2019s mother from high school seventeen years earlier, but his only recent interaction had been a brief exchange of pleasantries.<\/p>\n

[T]he defendant argued that Rolfes\u2019s failure to inform the court of the Facebook friendship between himself and the victim\u2019s mother amounted to juror misconduct<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his motion for a new trial, the defendant argued that Rolfes had failed to disclose that he was also Facebook friends with the victim\u2019s mother. This Facebook friendship between Rolfes and the victim\u2019s mother had begun several months prior to the trial. While the victim\u2019s mother had \u201cdefriended\u201d Rolfes just prior to the trial, the defendant argued that Rolfes\u2019s failure to inform the court of the Facebook friendship between himself and the victim\u2019s mother amounted to juror misconduct because Rolfes was asked about his relationship with the victim\u2019s mother during the jury selection process.
\nThe Court of Appeals determined first that Rolfes had not mischaracterized his relationship with the victim\u2019s mother. Instead, the Court established that Rolfes\u2019 Facebook interaction with the victim\u2019s mother had consisted of general pleasantries alone, which was entirely in line with what Rolfes had described during jury selection questioning. Secondly, the Court determined that Rolfes was not asked a question which specifically required him to reveal the Facebook friendship. For these reasons, the Court found the trial court\u2019s denial of the defendant\u2019s motion proper.
\nThe defendant\u2019s transfer request to the Missouri Supreme Court was denied<\/a> just last month.
\nThis verdict is in line with those of several Kentucky and Alabama cases dealing with questions of juror bias and Facebook. More specifically, Kentucky and Alabama courts decided that a Facebook friendship between a juror and an individual close to the case<\/a> (litigant, close family member of a litigant<\/a>, or witness<\/a>) alone do not create a presumption of juror bias. The courts in those states require some proof of actual bias<\/a> \u2013 that is, the court requires that the party claiming bias demonstrate that the juror\u2019s state of mind was actually prejudiced against the party, and not just that the circumstances of the case indicate that a bias could have been present.
\n 
\nFor a Supreme Court opinion discussing implied bias (in non-social media contexts) see McCleskey v. Kemp<\/a>. In this case, the Court dismissed the defendant\u2019s appeal because the defendant\u2019s evidence could only establish that the Georgia legal system disproportionately issued death penalty sentences to black defendants, and the evidence did not establish that any bias actually led the jury to sentence this particular defendant.
\nMore information on how lawyers can approach social media issues in cases can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, by Benjamin Szany The dynamics between jurors and social media is not a new concern for the American judiciary. The legal system has dealt with jurors learning \u201cfacts\u201d about their case from social media, jurors publishing insights regarding their case on social media, and jurors accessing social media in the courtroom …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7539,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/7539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}