Monday, August 30, 2010

Careful what you Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook post gets Macomb County juror in trouble
Associated Press
August 30, 2009

A judge removed a juror from a trial in suburban Detroit after the young woman wrote on Facebook that the defendant was guilty. The problem? The trial wasn’t over.

Hadley Jons of Warren could be found in contempt when she returns to the Macomb County circuit court Thursday.

Jons, 20, was a juror in a case of resisting arrest. On August 11, a day off from the trial and before the prosecution finished its case, she wrote on Facebook that it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re guilty.”

The post was discovered by defense lawyer Saleema Sheikh’s son.

Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski confronted Jons the next day and replaced her with an alternate.

“You don’t know how disturbing this is,” Druzinski said, according to the Macomb Daily.

A message seeking comment was left for Jons today.

“I would like to see her get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight,” Sheikh said. “This is the jury system. People need to know how important it is.”

Sheikh’s son, Jaxon Goodman, discovered the comment while checking jurors’ names on the Internet. He works in his mother’s law office.

“I’m really proud of him,” Sheikh said.

Without Jons, the jury convicted Sheikh’s client of a felony, but couldn’t agree on a separate misdemeanor charge.

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