Twitter And Facebook Creating Challenges for US Courts

No tweeting or status updates in court or deliberation rooms.

Judges have been increasingly instructing juries to stay off Facebook and Twitter -- and don't use the Internet to investigate the cases, according to Joseph Rosenbaum, a Reed Smith partner, who chairs the firm's global Advertising Technology & Media Law practice. Social media and access to search the Internet from anywhere have begun to change the rules in the U.S. court systems. County and city courts have begun to post rules outside each courtroom instructing people not only to turn off their mobile phone to eliminate the noise from obnoxious ringtones, but to keep people from writing blogs and posts. Judges have started giving juries instructions to stay off social network sites. As jurors come on to the jury and during the trial, "judges have begun to tell them they cannot surf the Web, do their own independent research and communicate with others via social media," Rosenbaum says. "They take the 'don't communicate and don't read the newspapers' language we use to hear and moving it into the digital age." Some courts have contemplated banning bringing mobile phones and personal computers into courtrooms, Rosenbaum says.

While today a ruling might get thrown out of court if someone tweets or blogs during a trial, at least one state has considered taking criminal action against the jurors.