Facebook Juror Update

Hadley Jons, the Facebook Juror who disclosed her "guilty" verdict on the social network before hearing the defense in a case, apologized and been given a writing assignment in disposition of her contempt citation, here's MLive.com's follow-up:

"A Detroit-area woman who was removed from a jury for commenting about an ongoing case on Facebook has a longer writing task ahead: a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial. A judge ordered the essay Thursday for Hadley Jons, three weeks after she wrote on Facebook that it was 'gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're GUILTY.' The trial, however, wasn't over.

'I'm sorry, very sorry,' Jons, 20, of Warren told Macomb County Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski.

The post was discovered by the defense team Aug. 11 — before the defense had even started its case — and Jons was removed from the jury the next day.  [Judge] Druzinski told Jons that it didn't matter whether she used Facebook to express an opinion or simply spoke to a friend about the case.

'You violated your oath. ... You had decided she was already guilty without hearing the other side,' the judge said.

By Oct. 1, Jons must submit an essay about the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and pay a $250 fine.  Jons declined comment outside court. Her attorney, John Giancotti, said the outcome was appropriate. He declined further comment.  Jons was a juror in a criminal case against Leann Etchison, who was charged with resisting arrest. She was eventually found guilty.

The Facebook post was found by Jaxon Goodman, the 17-year-old son of Etchison's defense lawyer. 'She'll think twice about how important being on a jury is,' Goodman said."
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The one thing you might bear in mind, Facebook, Twitter and the other social networking forums have given defense attorneys a tool to look at suspected juror misconduct that did not exist previously.  Great story.  Good and appropriate outcome by Judge Druzinski.

Facebook Post: "I'm Going to Vote Guilty!"

This is from M[ichigan]Live.com and it's almost unbelievable:

"Like all Macomb County jurors, 20-year-old Hadley Jons received a warning not to discuss her case outside of court. But that didn't stop her from sharing her thoughts on Facebook. 'actually excited for jury duty tomorrow,' she wrote Aug. 11 on the popular social media website. 'it's gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty. :P'

Jons never got that chance though, and the next day proved far from fun.

The Macomb Daily reports the son of defense attorney Saleema Sheikh discovered the Facebook post before Jons eventually deleted it, and Judge Diane Druzinski asked her about it the next day in court. After initially denying the post, Jons reportedly 'put her head down' and failed to respond when Druzinski read it aloud.  Jons was serving as a juror in the trail of a 40-year-old Clinton Township resident charged with a misdemeanor and a felony for resisting arrest. The case went on without her, but prosecutors eventually dismissed it when remaining jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Now, Jons will head back to court to face a potential fine or possible jail time. WDIV reports she will appear before Druzinski on Thursday for a contempt of court hearing.

'She was explicitly explained the rules just like everybody else,'  Sheikh told the television station, arguing Jons deserves to spend a short amount of time behind bars. 'She deliberately defied a court order in something as serious as this. So I think she needs to learn something.'

As far as Facebook failures go, Jons managed a triple crown: She either had lax privacy settings or accepted a friend request from someone she didn't know, discussed a private matter in a very public setting and failed to realize deleting a post doesn't delete it from the public record. Add those to the file."
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Expect this story to make it into a plot line of a television Law and Order episode, soon.

Mysterious Workings of the Judicial Mind

This report  from the Ottawa Sun, (Canada) puts on display the mysterious workings of the judicial mind, or at least the inner workings of Judge Robert Fournier's mind in convicting Tena Tesso, an Ethiopian immigrant in the sexual assault of an attractive 24 year old patient at the Ottawa General hospital emergency room.  Let me quote Megan Gillis' report:

"A judge convicted an orderly of groping an emergency room patient’s breast, calling the man’s insistence he never noticed the attractive, scantily clad blonde 'virtually impossible.'Judge Robert Fournier convicted Tena Tesso, 36, of sexual assault, concluding his 'evasive' account of what happened on Aug. 17, 2008, was simply 'incredible.'  The 24-year-old complainant, meanwhile, was 'as honest and frank as the day is long.'

The [victim] went straight from her waitressing job to the emergency room at the General hospital with abdominal pain at about 3 a.m.  Tesso ogled her [BL--sounds to me like the defendant was not the only one who ogled her!] in the waiting room then came into her exam room five times, offering her blankets because she was cold in a miniskirt and tank top.  She [testified that she] thanked Tesso but became uncomfortable when he asked if she had a boyfriend, brushed her buttocks as he changed the sheets beneath her — which weren’t soiled — and looked up her skirt.  But she [said she] gave [the defendant] the benefit of the doubt, thinking that Tesso — who wore white scrubs — was a foreign-trained doctor. She knew she’d been right all along when he put his hand in her shirt, touched her breasts and called her 'very beautiful.'  Testifying through an Ethiopian-dialect interpreter, Tesso denied doing anything but his job and said he didn’t even remember the woman until confronted by hospital officials.  [The defendant] refused to agree with prosecutor Paul Attia that the woman was attractive, insisting he only found his wife beautiful.   [Judge]Fournier scoffed at that.  'If 50 men, self-respecting, objective men, men who respect women, were to view (the woman), however briefly, they would conclude that she meets the standard of an attractive woman, at least in the city of Ottawa,' [Judge]Fournier said.  The accused refused to admit it because 'he knew it would bolster her account he was showing her undue attention,' Fournier argued.  'Here is a woman, relatively attractive, scantily dressed in a miniskirt, at times she is lying on the bed, exposing a great deal of her leg,' Fournier said.
'This accused refuses to acknowledge he noticed that. In my view this is virtually impossible.'"

The Bad Lawyer loves this story!  They say a picture is worth a 1000 words; here, we have the  Judge's words, no picture necessary.   Just beneath the robe, is the mind of a 12 year old boy.    Judge Fournier, should bear in mind our recent accounts of Judge's gone wild, er wrong.  One piece of advice for Judge Fournier, don't "friend" her on Facebook.

Cyclists Are Targets, Facebook, That's OK!

Facebook has refused to take down a page advocating violence against cyclists accordig to SFStreets.org.

I suspect that the site may be ironic, but cycling advocates have been demanding FB take it down.  FB has refused, according to SFStreets.org.

The Bad Lawyer Blawg is written by both a Bad Lawyer and a cyclist.  In the latter category, the Bad Lawyer has twice fallen prey to malicious motorists and once to a clueless driver.  Nonetheless, I continue to ride.

I'm with FB, on this one.  As a much wiser cycling-journo-attorney told me recently, the facebook site creates an interesting resource for the police and prosecutors to look at when investigating driver-crimes against cyclists.  One of the elements that sealed the deal for the prosecution of Dr. Christopher Thompson was his prior acts.  I wonder if he'll be able to link to this site from his prison cell where he will be spending the next 5 years?