One of the cases that spawned a lot of commentary on use of Twitter and Facebook by Jurors was the Fumo case in Philadelphia.  (See, e.g., here and here.)  Fumo was a state senator on trial for corruption.  During deliberations, one of the jurors tweeted and Facebooked.  Media attention ensued.  Fumo (and co-defendant) requested a new trial based among other things on the tweets, Facebook status messages, and blog postings of one of the jurors.  How did Fumo fare in his request? 

As some predicted (post by Max Kennerly predicting that this probably does not warrant a re-trial), Fumo lost. The order from Judge Buckwalter contains some interesting bits - as always, it's fun to see courts commenting on things like Twitter and Facebook.  (The Lexis cite for the case is: 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 51581.)

Twitter:  "This is it . . . no looking back now!" was the Tweet in question.  According to the court, the juror "did not use [the functionality which allowed users to respond to twitter postings] . . . instead, he used it as a brief, stream-of-consciousness diary of his thoughts." 

[Don't we all use it as a brief, stream-of-consciousness diary?]

Facebook:  The juror had a slew of Facebook "status updates" - none of which talked about the substance of the case.  He mostly talked about where they were at with deliberations, and did in the final status update say "Stay tuned for the big announcement on Monday everyone."  The order notes in passing that the juror belonged to "the Philadelphia network" which had 600,000 members (he wasn't friends with them by virtue of being a part of the network). 

The fun stuff - the juror's explanation regarding the purpose of the Facebook status updates:

its more for my benefit to just get it out of my head, similar to a blog posting or somebody journaling or something.  It's just to get it out there.  And that's what a lot of Facebook . . . it's just to get . . . a way to electronically get thoughts off your mind.

[I like that - a way to electronically get thoughts off your mind.  Isn't that what things like meditation are for?] 

The juror testified that he didn't receive any "non-friend" responses to his status updates, but engaged in some non-substantive banter with friends.  In response to a query from defense counsel as to whether his Facebook friends knew what he was talking about, the juror testified that "that's almost a little bit of the appeal of Facebook."  While others used it "for connection between other people" the juror in this case used it as a way to "journal" his thoughts.  Just the "random" thoughts. 

The Blog:  The juror also testified somewhat entertainingly about blogs:

Defense counsel:  do you have a comment feature on your blog?

Juror:  Comments are activated, yes.  But I think the only comments I ever usually got were from my wife or from my kids.  But it's not an active blog by any means.  It doesn't have a daily posting.  It's lucky if it has a seasonal posting because I've gotten away from that . . . with the advent of Facebook where you could get . . . more updates from friends and everything.  My own blog was more of just something to have to say I could have it years ago when that was the thing to do.  And then MySpace came out and Facebook came out.  Everybody's moved to those types of formats for blogging, so to speak.

[Facebook: take note!]

***

The opinion on the whole is worth a read (although it's somewhat long).  The testimony on the juror's use of Twitter and Facebook (and how he viewed them and interacted with "friends" on Facebook) is almost more interesting than the legal issues.  Ultimately, the court concludes there was no undue influence and the juror's non-substantive updates of the status of deliberations did not prejudice the trial.  I would guess there will be an appeal in this case.  I don't know enough to say where the Twitter/Facebook aspect of the case will make much of a difference (I'll leave that one to the experts), but the district court's treatment of the issue definitely seemed reasonable.

Footnote 30 was funny:  "A friend responded 'of what?,' to which [the juror] replied:  'Can't say till tomorrow! LOL [Laugh out loud].'"