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YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Juror gets caught adding female defendant to Facebook friend's list

    When Jonathan Hudson of Arlington, Texas sent a Facebook friend request to Courtney Downing, he probably didn’t realize that it would eventually result in four charges of contempt of court. At the time of the friend request, Hudson was taking a break from delivering pizzas to serve on a Texas jury. Courtney Downing happened to be the defendant in the case that concerned a 2008 car wreck and Hudson thought it would be a brilliant idea to befriend Downing on Facebook during the trial. Downing reported the friend request to her attorney and this led the judge to dismiss Hudson from the jury immediately.

    After being dismissed, Hudson contacted Downing on Facebook yet again through the messaging system pretending to have befriended the wrong Courtney Downing. This course of action yielded no help for Hudson and he ended up pleading guilty to contempt charges last week. Hudson could have faced up to six months in prison for his actions, but the court sentenced him to 16 hours of community service to be determined by the court bailiff. 

    Texas recently added specific language regarding the misuse of social media to the instructions that a judge reads to potential jurors before a trial begins. This inclusion specifically targets updating Facebook and Twitter status with details of an ongoing trial. With periods of lengthy downtime during a typical trial, jurors often turn to smartphones to pass the time.  

    A similar case happened in the UK during June 2011 when a juror reached out on Facebook to the defendant facing charges around drug distribution. The illegal communication caused the entire trial to collapse and the juror faces a potential penalty for the entire cost of the trial, an astounding 6 million pounds. The juror, a 40 year old mother of three, was eventually sentenced to eight months in prison for the contempt charges.

     
     
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    439 comments

    • rachel  •  8 mths ago
      please forgive me, but i don't understand why this is a criminal faux pas! can someone explain?
    • Michael  •  8 mths ago
      Texas-style presidential material.
    • patrick  •  8 mths ago
      must be something in Texas water.
    • Left L.A.  •  8 mths ago
      Wow.... I don't know what to say..... Stupid just doesn't cover it. Wow.
    • clownluv  •  8 mths ago
      so what maybe he wanted to hit that!!!!!
    • Zee  •  8 mths ago
      This is why palin and bachmann are even in the race...foolish hard-on males will vote with their unit half the time "uh dude, she's hot, maybe if i vote for her I'll get...like uh, lucky with her or something..!" DUH.....What a boner brain...!
    • CommanderShepard  •  8 mths ago
      Wasn't Hudson the moron from Aliens?
    • Dataman  •  8 mths ago
      A juror caught tampering with himself. How droll.
    • JeremyK  •  8 mths ago
      What a retard!
    • Bob  •  8 mths ago
      Hommie sahould have befriended her on myspace! No one pays attention to that site anymore! *LOL*
    • Chester Mcsloppynuts  •  8 mths ago
      Facebook is kinda like prison. You write on walls and get poked by people you don't know.
      • kerosevics 8 mths ago
        Good one xD
      • The Mind 8 mths ago
        It's a 'Look at Me' site! I'm vain, but not THAT vain... I quit Facebook after seeing what it is - a waste of time, etc.
      • clownluv 8 mths ago
        HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAA very good!
    • Richard  •  8 mths ago
      When you on trail, you should not allow to use any social network just like the rule that don't allow to watch news or look article related to you trial.
      • The truth 8 mths ago
        When you talk like retard. People not take you serious.
      • The Mind 8 mths ago
        When you write, you should follows those rules, too...
      • Ari o 8 mths ago
        Can you put that in English please ?
    • Bob  •  8 mths ago
      That showa just how big brother is STALKING your EVERY Move!
      • mschlenker 8 mths ago
        Big Brother didn’t do S*&%, the defendant reported him. If he had half a brain he would have kept his D*&% in his paints and his mind on the case. Rather than the other way around.
    • Joe One  •  8 mths ago
      Heres another reason facebook should be shutdown.
    • J s  •  8 mths ago
      Need to have an IQ test to be on a jury. It should the law. Sure would limit the jury pools. Justice would probably not be served, for they wouldn't have a jury of their peers. Scrap this idea.
    • Polo  •  8 mths ago
      Yeah, I am about to hand you the death penalty or life in prison but you want to be my FaceBook Friend? What a freaking idiot. FaceBook is a waste of time. I have a 1,000 friends on FaceBook that I never met or seen and have not been out of the bedroom or on a date for many years now. I actually met a guy who said he had a girlfirend but it turned out he never met her but talked thru faceBook. What a waste the digital age is creating. Call me old-fashioned but I like my friends to be actual friends I can met with, have a beer, or go to an actual social event. This is a sad-little Texan!
    • J s  •  8 mths ago
      ONLY AIR BETWEEN HIS EARS.
    • BallsofKungfucious  •  8 mths ago
      How do you spell stupid? H-U-D-S-O-N!
    • Dread Pirate Roberts  •  8 mths ago
      Texas = the land of fruits and nuts. Look at Perry, DeLay and Bush. They look like inbred monkies on a chain.
      • church 8 mths ago
        Texas is a great state, as for you don't look in the mirror so much
      • David 8 mths ago
        This carries a lot of weight from a dude calling himself a dead pirate
      • Lady Kougar 8 mths ago
        David, it's Dread Pirate. It came from the movie The Princess Bride. And Dread, I can say I have 2 friends in Texas and at least one of them is not nuts! LOL
    • stone  •  8 mths ago
      the defendant must have been a hot chic
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