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Social Networking Sites Becoming Useful For Lawyers

Posted by Soulskill on from the to-be-expected dept.

chareverie writes "With how the internet has become, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have become a tool for crime solvers, employers, and now, lawyers. Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunk driving case, the college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner, with the words 'jail bird' on his costume. Not surprisingly, his prosecutor was able to obtain photos of him at the party that were posted on Facebook, and claimed he was an 'unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital.' The photos were presented in a slideshow, with one of them showing Lipton holding a can of Red Bull in one hand, and an arm draped around a girl bearing sorority letters. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and changed Lipton's sentence to two years in prison. The article also cites other instances of people getting harsher sentences from pictures of them posted online."

5 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This was just on the news in Philly by Sigma+7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Taking his PC i think was a bit overboard unless they had hard evidence that some crime was committed with the PC. The judge should never have permitted that warrant to go thru.

    The PC can contain evidence, such as unpublished photos. Saying you can't grab a PC for evidence is just like saying you can't search the personal diary for evidence (which obviously isn't the case.)

    In criminal court, search warrants can be issued as long as they can convince a judge that there's a good chance evidence can be improved or obtained. It's a tactic popular with child porn cases, but can be extended to other cases as well.

  2. Re:Uh? Hello? by Thiez · · Score: 3, Informative

    > And if it was someone in your family lying painfully in the hospital, the photo of the defendant carrying on in a jailbird costume two weeks after the accident would likely fill you with rage. You'd want justice.

    You misspelled 'revenge'. And that's not what the law is for.

  3. Re:This is Stupid by rpillala · · Score: 4, Informative

    Most things I hear or read deal with sentencing disparities based on the race of the victim. Here's a GAO report (PDF) from 1990 submitted by what appears to be the Senate judiciary committee. Strom Thurmond is listed among the submitters. He's hardly leftist.

    From the findings:

    In 82 percent of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks.

    ...

    The race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process, although there were variations among studies as to whether there was a race of victim influence at specific stages. The evidence for the race of victim influence was stronger for the earlier stages of the judicial process (e.g. prosecutorial decision to charge defendant with a capital offense, decision to proceed to trial rather than plea bargain) than in later stages.

    The findings section does discuss some reasons their results are not the last word on this subject.

    http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat11/140845.pdf

    --
    When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
  4. Re:This is Stupid by nomadic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yet, once he's president, he'll have the official capacity to pardon all non-violent drug offenders... think he'll do it???

    He'll only have the capacity to pardon offenders of federal drug laws, not state.

  5. Re:This was just on the news in Philly by Free_Meson · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unless those photos were of the crime scene, I agree with the GP. It's the state's job to prove that a crime was committed and that he was responsible.

    He posted photos of himself smoking pot and drinking while underage on his social networking page. Those photos are evidence of a crime (namely, smoking pot and drinking while underage). That's sufficient PC to search his computer for additional photographs and other evidence of those crimes. Just because he's under arrest for vehicular homicide doesn't mean the police can't get a search warrant for evidence of other crimes.

    While attacking his character may be successful in getting him a harsher sentence, or maybe getting him convicted in the first place by manipulating the jury, it strikes me as a pretty unethical thing to do

    Generally the prosecution cannot introduce character evidence against a defendant until a defendant raises his own character as an issue. Depending on what's recovered, it may be possible to introduce evidence against him under one of the exceptions to this rule (MIMIC - motive, intent, lack of mistake, identity, common plan).