Colorado Judge Allows Twitter In Courtroom
Jan 6th, 2009 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Courtroom Technology, Featured, Lead Article, Twitter
The courtroom now includes Twitter.
What? Twitter inside the courtroom?
Yes, it’s true. A Colorado judge recently approved the use of Twitter, and blogs, inside the courtroom to cover an infant-abuse trial.
Wichita Eagle (Kansas) reporter, Ron Sylvester, pushed for the court to allow the use of Twitter for his courtroom reporting.
Sylvester argued courts are open to the public and the process of reporting with Twitter is similar to writing a story for a newspaper. However, the major difference in the two mediums is the speed at which the information would be released (Twitter being more immediate).
This was not the first time Sylvester has reported via Twitter from inside the courtroom. In fact, Sylvester’s Twitter page seems to indicate he frequently reports from inside the courtroom using Twitter.
Lawyers should learn more about these new social media technologies because they are finding ways inside the courtroom. Judges are now, at least in Colorado, allowing reporters to use Twitter to report live.
The rise of Twitter will mean the rise of more reporters like Sylvester sitting our nation’s courtrooms.
This original story was found at the Colorado Independent here or see below:
By Ernest Luning 1/5/09 4:54 PM; The Colorado Independent
Prosecutors and defense attorneys wanted bloggers silenced in the courtroom next week, but a Boulder judge ordered Monday that cell phones and computers won’t be banned from the child-abuse trial of Alex Midyette, the Boulder Daily Camera reports. The attorneys argued that live-blogging and Tweeting the sensational case could tip witnesses to proceedings before they testified, thus impeding a fair trial. “I think there are other manageable options and less restrictive options than shutting down the flow of information during the trial,” Boulder District Judge Lael Montgomery said.
Last week, when the attorneys filed the joint motion to keep bloggers out of the courtroom, a Kansas journalist who has pioneered new media trial coverage cried foul. “Courts are supposed to be public and this is just another way of creating public access,” Wichita Eagle reporter Ron Sylvester wrote in an e-mail to the Colorado Independent. In addition to a Tweeting trial coverage, Sylvester maintains a blog, What the Judge Ate for Breakfast, with further insight into the local courts.
“[R]eporting through live blogging is simply text descriptions, just as newspapers have been reporting on the courts for ages,” Sylvester wrote. “When I use Twitter to cover trials, there’s really very little difference in what I do with social media than what I write for the next day’s newspaper.”
Montgomery agreed in her ruling Monday, ordering witnesses to refrain from reading about the testimony of other witnesses. “The court believes that is a more appropriate way to proceed than shutting off the reporting at the front end,” the Longmont Times-Call reported.
Bloggers covered the trial of Molly Midyette, Alex Midyette’s wife, who was convicted a year ago of failing to stop or report the abuse that led to the death of her 11-week-old son, Jason. The judge already moved her husband’s trial from Boulder to Denver because of pre-trial publicity and banned television cameras from the courtroom.
Alex Midyette’s trial on charges of child abuse resulting in death is scheduled to start Jan. 12. The judge also ruled Monday that the jury won’t be sequestered. “I am persuaded that the standard admonishment to the jury about avoiding media reports about the case will suffice,” she said.
Sylvester put the controversy over trial blogging in perspective: “A note: The notion of public courts predates our Constitution and even the Magna Carta. There are records of public trials following the Saxon invasion in England, where trials were held on the public square of villages. Our public squares now include Twitter.”
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- Social Media Law Student Microblog Posts and Links on Twitter
- Implications of Electronic Communication on Family Law Litigation
- Texting to the Witness Stand is an “Egregious and Deliberate Attempt to Subvert Our Justice System”
- Social Media Law Student Microblog Posts and Links for 2009-01-10
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- How Lawyers Avoid The Social Media Fail Whale
Well it’ll be faster to read the live-tweets than wait for the transcripts…….
[Reply]
[...] on how 2009 is the year in which Twitter will, to adopt a phrase, go large, while thanks to Social Media Law Student we learn that, in the US, a Colorado judge recently approved the use of Twitter, and blogs, inside [...]
[...] See the original post here: Colorado Judge Allows Twitter In Courtroom | Social Media Law Student [...]
Speed and convenience is becoming more popular. At what cost? More and more information is given virtually, local newspaper’s and even international papers you would think are suffering. That is not completely true. Virtual information than becomes free advertising. The population is programed to know that newspapers, and the news on t.v. gives in-depth, and opinionated coverage from multiple angles. So chances are finding a story on-line will provoke a consumer to follow into the story more.
[Reply]
[...] you are still nto convinced on the benefits of Twitter, here’s an interesting story about Twitter’s day in court by Rex Gradeless, Social Media Law [...]
[...] judge in Kansas has allowed the use of Twitter in the courtroom. This is consistent with when a Colorado judge approved the use of Twitter, and blogs, inside the courtroom to cover an infant-abuse [...]
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
[Reply]
admin
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April 17th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Yes, you may.
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That’s what technology brings in. That might speed up the up the process too.
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If judges want to control their court rooms they will need to be on top of things. I think to a certain extent that is already happening at least in the bankruptcy courts. Since they have been pioneers with use of e-filing, e-signing of orders, and other technology, many of them are very computer literate.
[Reply]
[...] 3. Colorado Judge Allows Twitter In Courtroom [...]
[...] Read more here (from the Colorado Independent). (Hat tip: Social Media Law Student.) [...]
I can not see why a judge would allow twitter in the court room unless it explicitly applies to the case. For just the pure use of releasing data at a faster more instantaneous rate that is just ridiculous. I know that as a Tacoma divorce attorney this would not be appropriate in family courts.
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カンザス州の[...]裁判官は、法廷でTwitterを使用し、このときにコロラド州の判事は、Twitterの使用を承認し、ブログ、法廷内では虐待[...]幼児カバーするために一貫して許可している
[Reply]
[...] Apparently the reporter making the request will be barred form sending tweets to others outside the courtroom. This federal judge’s ruling is in direct contradiction to rulings made by a judge in Colorado who allowed a Kansas reporter to tweet. [...]