Tweets get death-row jailbird second chance
The Arkansas State Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s death-row conviction of murderer Erickson Dimas-Martinez because one of the jurors posted to Twitter during the case.
The district court upheld the original ruling, saying the Tweets were not consequential to the case, but the state Supreme Court saw it differently:
“Because of the very nature of Twitter as an… online social media site, Juror 2′s tweets about the trial were very much public discussions,” wrote Associate Justice Donald Corbin.
“Even if such discussions were one-sided, it is in no way appropriate for a juror to state musings, thoughts or other information about a case in such a public fashion.”
It is unclear what comes next. “The Supreme Court has recommended a retrial,” but “A spokesman for the attorney general said the state had not decided its next step.”
One thing is likely: there will probably be discussion about defining the rules for social media usage during trials. And in an age of shallow social media addiction, and jurors taking justice so seriously as to fall asleep during prosecution’s evidence, those discussions should be real interesting.