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: Legal Blog Watch

Proposed Amendments to Texas Civ Pro Rules Make Facebooking About Jury Duty a No-No

By Eric Lipman

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We've written several times about the potential hazards of mixing social media/the internet and jury service. There was the blogging juror who was turned in by a law professor. And the disturbing results of an unscientific survey of jury duty-related tweets. The Texas Supreme Court must have been reading LBW. Because yesterday, as reported by the Tex Parte blog, the court released proposed amendments to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure that, among other things, would hammer home the point that the internets are no place for jurors to be hanging out. Proposed Rule 226a would change the mandatory instructions that trial judges would give to potential jurors on a panel, and to the jury once selected, in several ways. The current rule was last amended in 2005, and makes no mention of the internet. But the proposed new rule includes the following instructions: Do not discuss this case with anyone, even your spouse or a friend, either in person or by any other means [including by phone, text message, email message, chat room, blog, or social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace]. Do not allow anyone to discuss the case with you or in your hearing. If...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on December 15, 2010 (boomark / email).