Legal News

Fuentes de-friends Facebooking jurors with new bill

By Richard Binder

Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, D-Sylmar, introduced legislation last week that would amend civil and criminal contempt statutes to allow punishment of jurors who discuss confidential legal proceedings via Google, Twitter, Facebook and the like.

The growing problem of jurors using the Internet to research cases they're weighing or to share details of their service with others has been well-documented. A San Francisco Superior Court judge last June dismissed an entire pool of 600 potential jurors after he discovered that a number of them had searched online for information about the criminal case, in spite of verbal admonishments to refrain from such activity.

Fuentes' bill will not address jury instructions, since they vary among courts.  The bill is still in its draft stages, but has already garnered support from attorneys.  Read the full story at The Recorder.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 23, 2010 (boomark / email).