Lawyers Using Facebook Research for Jury Selection

unassimilatible writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that trial lawyers are increasingly using social networking sites like Facebook to research jurors in real-time during the voir dire process. Armando Villalobos, the district attorney of Cameron County, Brownsville, Texas, last year equipped his prosecutors with iPads to scan the Web during jury selection. But what of the jurors who have their privacy settings restricted to "friends only?" Mr. Villalobos has thought of a potential workaround: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily "friending" his office. Faustian bargain, or another way to get out of jury duty?

Seems like and abuse of power

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Mr. Villalobos has thought of a potential workaround: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily "friending" his office.

So the prosecutor gets to determine who has access to the wifi network in the court building? Presumably the defense does not have such a privilege, so they are at an inherent disadvantage based on the prosecution's control over what should be neutral ground.

I'd imagine it's the DA office's WiFi

[unassimilatible]

But yeah, courthouses are definitely not neutral ground. Forget jurors who want to check Facebook. Defense lawyers learn that when they have 90 minutes for "lunch," and have a motion due at 1:30. The DA's walk across the hall to their offices and sit down at their PC's and pull up Lexis, and pull their lunch out of the fridge and microwave it. The defense lawyers, OTOH...fortunately there are iPads and the like with data plans today. 10 years ago, you were pretty screwed unless your office happens to be acr