Juror Jailed For Using Facebook To Contact Defendant

It's a no-brainer to not contact the defendant in any way if you're on the jury, right? Are we missing something here??

A woman has now become the first person to ever be jailed for contempt of court through use of the internet. Joanne Fraill, 40, used Facebook to contact the defendant in a multi-million dollar drug trial and caused it to collapse:

The ill-fated drugs case ultimately involved more than 10,000 pages of evidence, 500 witnesses, 14 barristers, five juries and more than 160 days in court.

That's a huge loss, we've gotta say.

The judge sentence Fraill to 8 months in prison, whereas the defendant who had been acquitted in the trail got two months suspended because she has a three year old child, and the judge didn't want to put more stress on the bond between a child and her mother.

Fraill was said to have made the contact with the defendant because she saw similarities in their lives, and went on to reveal information about the jury's standing and further information about the case.

Honestly, we see no reason for this to have happened. It really does seem like universal knowledge that you wouldn't do something like this, and that's probably why this is the first case of it happening on the internet so far.

If you're not the brightest, take note! Otherwise, you know talking about an ongoing case as a juror is illegal in any form!

Perez Hilton 17 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://perezhilton.com/2011-06-17-juror-jailed-for-using-facebook-to-contact-defendant
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