Law & Culture,  Legal Technology

Trial by Tweet

More accurately, I guess, trial coverage by tweet.  A reporter as been given permission by a federal judge in Kansas to pubish updates from the courtroom via Twitter.  A few of his dispatches by tweet:

— “Judge Marten is talking to reluctant witness in chambers with a court reporter transcribing the conversation.”

— “The witness who was yelling in the hallway earlier has not returned to the courthouse.”

— “Defendants are chatting and laughing among themselves.”

— “Exhibits are shown electronically. Every juror has a monitor in the box. There is a monitor at each lawyer’s table and one for the gallery.”

It won’t be long before journalism schools offer a course in “journalism in 140 characters or less.”

We’ve already seen a blogging juror become a potential issue on appeal.  But it seems unlikely we’ll see tweeting jurors any time soon.  It would be awfully hard to tweet from the jury box without being noticed.

UPDATE: I was wrong.

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