United States v. Liu, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160727, 1 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 14, 2014)
According to the District Court of the Southern District of New York jurors may be blogging about their day-to-day jury experience as the trial proceeds.
In this case, after being convicted of immigration fraud, the defendants moved for a new trial under Fed. R. Crim. P. 33 based on alleged juror misconduct. They contended that one of the jurors involved in their matter lied about the fact that she had been routinely posting about her jury service on the social media service Twitter during the trial, disobeying Court’s instructions not to talk about the case. Defendants further argued that juror’s tweets revealed bias against them. All this, defendants claimed, deprived them of their Sixth Amendment right to a trial by an impartial jury.
The Court concluded otherwise and denied defendants’ motion observing that the juror “was an attentive juror who, while engaging in banter with fellow Twitter users about her experience, was nonetheless careful never to discuss the substance of the case, as instructed by the Court. The record is devoid of any evidence that she was either dishonest or biased, or that Defendants were prejudiced by her tweets in any way”.
The United States District Court Southern District of New York Opinion and Order is available at http://nylawyer….
For more information contact Nathan M. Crystal
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