Indiana Supreme Court allows MySpace entry as evidence in murder trial

B

Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
http://www.abajournal.com/news/ind._high_court_allows_myspace_entry_as_evidence_in_murder_trial

A brief but good article here for some of our members who don't realize how public of a forum TFL is. The person in question took the stand in his own defense and opened himself up to rebutting character evidence (from his MySpace page).

Not only were the prosecutors able to find the evidence with ease and were well aware of it. The defendant continued to boast and make comments about the case after he was initially charged and those comments were used against him as well.

Note that there wasn't really anything controversial about the ruling. Everyone agreed that it was a clear case of simply applying the old rules to a new form of communication. In this case, the defendant was a guy who deserves to be in prison (he was convicted of the beating murder of his girlfriend's 2yr old daughter... his defense was that it was reckless homicide - he then boasted that "It's only a C felony. I can beat this." afterwards)

However, it is worth remembering that the same rules apply to good guys who get crossways with the law as well. The defendant here made his character an issue by taking the stand in his own defense and that allowed the prosecutor to bring his Internet statements into evidence.
 
And some people wonder why they get booted off of TFL when they make statements as to unlawful acts... Or why they are told to "Shut Up" if they talk about their pending case.

sigh

Some never learn.
 
Yep. Prosecutors can subpoena the IP address of a user if his comments on a forum constitute evidence. There was a defamation suit brought against a poster on AR15.com awhile back in which this happened.

In Georgia, we had a situation in which a man and his friends vandalized an outdoor range and posted video of it on YouTube. People were able to track him back to a MySpace site that gave his personal particulars and confirmation of the incident, and that information was used to arrest and prosecute him.

The internet isn't as anonymous as people think, and frankly, if they feel the need to hide behind anonymity, perhaps they should consider their motives.

(Sidenote: the forum spell-check thinks that "internet" is a misspelling :))
 
I'm probably the only student at my college to not use facebook or twitter or myspace etc. I even don't like my girlfriend posting about me on hers. Not for this reason but a simple reason: I like my damn privacy. What kind of mentality is involved in people thinking that anyone else wants to know what you are doing all the time? What are you willing to give up to be Internet famous? I'd rather not random people know about medical conditions, work schedules, class schedules, neighborhoods, hobbies, etc etc. But I guess I'm too comfortable with myself to need to publish my life on the Internet. What was this guy thinking? That people would see him as a better person for knocking his baby murder charge down to a lesser baby murder charge? That they would feel sorry for him? This guy (and a lot of people who use social networking sites) is nothing but an attention whore and if he's not convicted of murder he should be convicted of being a moron.

Side note: to avoid the forum spell check for "internet" try capitalizing the I.
 
side note: The spell checker thinks "internet" is a proper verb noun and should be capitalized. (Sefner beat me to it! :D ) (and nobody noticed the incorrect word type?)
 
Bart, putting the nauseating horror of the crime aside for the moment, that illustrates the illusion of privacy so many have. Even things you think are private are all also potentially public. Things you post on the internet aren't even potentially private, so it is doubly bizarre that anyone would treated as a confidential best friend.

It is much easier never to say or write anything you wouldn't want to see printed publicly than it would be to think about who is listening or reading at any given moment. I may be honest more as a form of sloth than because of any innate goodness.
 
even if you walk (no driver's license), have no job and
only use cash, you still have no privacy

credit cards and cell phones pretty much take care of it all

darn!
 
Any one who does any harm of any kind (not verbal,but physical)to a child should forfeit their freedom.Bad part for the bad guy aside from prison time is if the other inmates find out what he did his time as a living soul would cease,or at the very least be beaten to a pulp.
Cant say i feel sorry for the guy being convicted for his crime.Serves him right.
 
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