{"id":11679,"date":"2023-12-18T22:06:41","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T22:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=11679"},"modified":"2023-12-18T22:06:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T22:06:42","slug":"best-of-2023-defending-against-social-media-in-criminal-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2023\/12\/18\/best-of-2023-defending-against-social-media-in-criminal-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2023: Defending Against Social Media in Criminal Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Jeffrey Lane, Fanny A. Ramirez, & Desmond U. Patton, <\/span>“Defending against social media: structural disadvantages of social media in criminal court for public defenders and defendants of low socioeconomic status,” Information, Communication & Society<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2023<\/span><\/div>\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A collage of social media icons with a blue haze by\u00a0<\/em>geralt<\/em><\/a>. Image from\u00a0<\/em>Pixabay<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is licensed under\u00a0<\/em>Pixabay license<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Tweets, pictures, and messages may be used against you. Social media, a common way to connect and share our lives, has become a common form of courtroom evidence. Jeffrey Lane<\/a>, Fanny A. Ramirez<\/a>, and Desmond U. Patton<\/a> explored in their research how social media data in criminal trials harms low-income defendants \u2013 who are commonly represented by public defenders. The researchers interviewed New York City public defenders, lawyers appointed to represent people who cannot afford to hire private attorneys, about their experiences preparing for trial and defending clients in cases involving social media data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>The public defenders shared three main disadvantages they experienced while defending their clients. First, they were frustrated by overly broad search warrants that allowed the prosecution to access years of social media data to use as evidence. This overwhelmed public defenders with data, which increased their uncertainty about what evidence might be used, their fear of missing important data, and the amount of time preparing the case. Describing prosecutors\u2019 use of these search warrants, one public defender said: \u201cThey were just fishing\u2026they looked at everything and they found something they liked<\/em>\u201cThey were just fishing\u2026they looked at everything and they found something they liked<\/span>. That\u2019s not how it\u2019s supposed to go.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, public defenders told the researchers that social media companies generally \u201cbend over backwards for law enforcement,\u201d but do not cooperate with public defenders in sharing individual profile data. While law enforcement could request a wide range of data (including data unavailable to the public, like location data), public defenders have limited access to data that may help their clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>Lastly, public defenders described how social media data is used to paint their clients in a negative light. This pattern of using social media against people even involved using racial stereotypes. For example, one public defender told researchers about a case where the prosecution selected a photo from Instagram to identify the defendant at trial. Although the Instagram account had plenty of options, including family pictures, the prosecution selectively chose a photo that made the defendant appear \u2018thuggish\u2019the prosecution selectively chose a photo that made the defendant appear \u2018thuggish\u2019<\/span> and ignored others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to these disadvantages, public defenders in this study said that they consistently had to defend against<\/em> social media and lacked opportunities to use social media data to help their clients. While social media data could negatively impact any defendant, this research suggests that low-income defendants are particularly vulnerable due to the time and resources it takes to review social media data, putting increased strain on public defenders.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeffrey Lane, Fanny A. Ramirez, & Desmond U. Patton, “Defending against social media: structural disadvantages of social media in criminal court for public defenders and defendants of low socioeconomic status,” Information, Communication & Society, 2023 A collage of social media icons with a blue haze by\u00a0geralt. Image from\u00a0Pixabay\u00a0is licensed under\u00a0Pixabay license. Your Tweets, pictures, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2217,"featured_media":11680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[138461,138259,138456,4407,42185,138451,138455,138457,138267,138453,138469,138465,138460,138462,138263,138459,138468,105308,138450,138464,138454,138466,138248,105180,138258,138467,138458,138452,138463],"class_list":["post-11679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-courtroom-evidence","tag-criminal-cases","tag-criminal-defense","tag-criminal-justice","tag-criminal-justice-reform","tag-criminal-trials","tag-data-overload","tag-data-privacy","tag-defense-strategies","tag-digital-evidence","tag-digital-footprints","tag-digital-profiling","tag-justice-inequities","tag-law-enforcement-cooperation","tag-legal-challenges","tag-legal-disparities","tag-legal-injustice","tag-legal-system","tag-low-income-defendants","tag-privacy-rights","tag-prosecutorial-tactics","tag-public-defender-challenges","tag-public-defenders","tag-racial-stereotypes","tag-search-warrants","tag-selective-evidence","tag-social-media-companies","tag-social-media-evidence","tag-social-media-impact"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/files\/2023\/12\/mobile-1087845_1280.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11683,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679\/revisions\/11683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}