Juror Tweets Could Create Mistrial

by Jordan Yerman | March 17, 2009 at 07:45 am

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A court case between rival construction firms faces mistrial due to a juror's use of Twitter during the proceedings.

At issue is not that the juror in question was receiving outside influence, but that he could have been grandstanding, as it were, to his followers- this is the tack that the losing side's legal team is taking in order to secure a mistrial.

U.S. courts usually allow jurors to discuss how they reached a verdict after the case. However, there are still strict rules against talking about any case as it happens.

Powell told Ars that the judge issued fairly standard rules for jurors which forbid researching trial-related information on the Internet, but the judge did allow cell phone use on breaks, "which is when I was sending my tweets."

During the trial, Powell's Twitter use was one-way; using the service's SMS feature, Powell says that he published posts via text messages but did not see posts or replies from other users.

Intriguingly, the lawyers for Stoam Holding are not arguing so much that other people directly influenced Powell's judgment, rather that he might have felt a need to agree to a spectacular verdict to impress the people reading his posts."

He's clearly an early adopter, though, having secured the username "johnathan".

Point is: no microblogging during court proceedings. That would include sneaky mobile phone snapshots, too, before anyone even asks.