A Maryland appeals court has overturned a first-degree felony-murder conviction because a deliberating juror had conducted an online search of scientific terms related to how blood flows after death.

The juror’s Wikipedia search denied Allan Jake Clark a fair trial because “the right to an impartial jury embraces the right to have the case decided exclusively on the evidence that is produced in open court,” the Court of Special Appeals held in an unreported opinion.

According to the article, a juror looked up the terms “livor mortis” and “algor mortis” on Wikipedia and printed the pages out. The appeals court ruling was 3-0. The article goes on to say that, earlier this year in Wardlaw v. State, the appeals court threw out an assault conviction because a juror in the original trial looked up the term “oppositional defiant disorder.”

In this most recent case, the judge let the trial continue after the juror said he could put aside what he found in his online search.

Related posts:

1. Twitter allowed in the Courtroom…. for now

Phone-banking has always taken a lot of organizational efforts and resources in campaigns. You have to find a physical location to have your volunteers come in and make the calls. You have to actually find the volunteers. The list goes on and on. VoterFetch aims at removing the physical location and phone line barriers by allowing the volunteer to make the calls from home. There have been campaigns giving lists to volunteers to make calls at home, but I have yet to see anyone else doing what VoterFetch does in this area.

The FAQ for VoterFetch is a pretty good summary of current and future capabilities.

Volunteers log in to VoterFetch and download call lists that have been placed there by the campaign. As they make their calls, they log the results online and the campaign gets them in real time. There is also an offline mode that allows the results to be uploaded later.

Currently, their program is not set up to integrate VOIP systems, but they are exploring that as a possibility in the near future. Their pricing is based on the level of office your candidate is running for. They have demos available (see their website for more information.)

Other possible uses are mentioned in the FAQ. Additionally, VoterFetch can be integrated with CiviCRM and Salesforce. It can also be customized to match a campaign’s website. They also seem to be looking into developing an iPhone app. Please also note that they only work for Republicans.

The below video is from VoterFetch.com:

No related posts.

No related posts.

Over the weekend, I read a Mashable post by Leah Betancourt about how Google Wave is changing news already, despite the limited numbers of actual Google Wave users so far as its beta testing continues.

There are 4 examples of how media companies are using Google Wave given in the post.

• Using Waves to Foster Engagement
• Using Waves As ‘Town Squares’
• Wave as a Newsroom Content Planning Tool
• Turning Blog Posts Into Public Waves

Fostering engagement is something that Mashable’s Betancourt points out is being done at places like the Chicago Tribune’s Redeye blog. Redeye sent out its first public wave on November 10 and has been sending out a daily one since then. Their participation in the waves lasts a half hour (the wave itself keeps going) and discuss the cover story that day. They end the wave by taking suggestions from their readers. The wave is promoted via Twitter and on their website.

The Austin American-Statesman is given in the Mashable post as an example of using waves as town squares. They have started two waves and report that it gets troublesome to keep the wave on topic after 50 blips or so. They seem to be using it to engage their readers as well, just in a different way than Redeye. This model seems to be one that I like so far, if combined with a couple of the other examples.

Betancourt next gives the example of The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and WFLA. These outlets share a common online editor and they use Google Wave to keep track of all the stories they are working on everyday so that everyone in the “converged” newsroom can see what is going on. The editor can track the stories that are in the pipeline through this wave everyday.

Andrew Nystrom and Mark Milian have discussed How Google Wave Could Transform Journalism and even embedded a blog post of that topic into Google Wave. Mashable’s Betancourt summarizes it thusly, “Among some of the ideas listed in the post were: collaborative reporting, smarter story updates, live editing, discussing while reading, and a transparent writing process.”

As I read the original post, some ideas hit me. After I got my Google Wave account a few weeks ago, I found it very useless at first, since hardly anyone I knew was on there yet to collaborate. The second week I had an account I discovered public waves and how to search for them. I parlayed this into finding several regional waves for Baltimore and DC that I have since used for networking. I also found a few waves for interests I have and the discussion there has been good. I even started some regional/local waves in hopes of helping the other people I knew on Wave at that point do some networking as well as add their friends to these waves to get more people together. I have noticed in the past week or so that there seem to be a lot more contacts I know on Wave but I’m not sure if that’s due to accelerated invitations by Google and other users or it’s just finding people I hadn’t found before who were already there.

In light of Betancourt’s post and my own rudimentary experiments with Google Wave I started a “news wave” yesterday on Inside Charm City, a Baltimore blog that I publish. I cherry-picked a handful of news items from yesterday’s headlines, mainly the ongoing Sheila Dixon trial and jury deliberations, and invited a few people in Baltimore on Google Wave to participate. It was promoted in a blog post and on Twitter. By the end of the day, the wave had grown to 29 participants and 47 messages (or blips if you prefer.)

Today, I started a wave and embedded this morning’s news roundup post into it. The discussion today so far includes 43 participants and 39 blips. I am going to probably embed this evening’s news roundup post into the Wave as well.

I see my posts as fusing some of the techniques given in the Mashable post. I hope to engage our readers more and I also hope to do some event-based waves. Had I been far enough along in the process of using Wave, I would have started a wave just for the trial of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. I think that one would have been a really big continuing one, but I think there may have been problems keeping up with it or reigning it in if it strayed off-topic. Perhaps letting it go for a couple of days and then migrating to a new wave would be the way to go in a longer event-based wave.

I like the idea of embedding blog posts in a wave to help start discussion and conversation. That seemed to cause more conversation today than just mentioning some news items did yesterday. Today and yesterday both provided people with a sandbox to test out different functions in Google Wave that they weren’t sure about. I have yet to embed any graphics, videos or Google gadgets. I will be going in that directions next probably. I had avoided it so far because I was unsure how big the waves would get and whether some of these add-ins might make it unwieldy and cause freezes.

I really appreciate Leah Betancourt’s great post on this topic and all of the great ideas she was able to assemble from  various media people around the country. I have definitely progressed from the first few days of logging in to Google Wave and wondering what I was supposed to do with it next.

Related posts:

1. Google search trends on campaigns in VA, NJ and NY
2. Twitter Narcissism

What? No editing? One of the most fun ways of contextualizing and sharing a conversation is to RT a short message, and append something, separated by double slashes, a pipe character, or a pseudo-arrow. The retweet button does not allow any of that. That one can suppress retweets from a user is of little solace, as, given the large number of people some follow, managing RT-bans would be a pain in and of itself.

The stats reporting on how many people have RTed the same message? Pure ego stroking and little more. While yes, Virginia, no one is requiring us to RT this way, we expected better.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

No related posts.

I want to extend a special welcome to readers who found this post via The Volokh Conspiracy. I also publish a blog on Baltimore news issues called Inside Charm City if you’d like to take a look.

Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun recently posted this on Twitter:

Live tweeting going on from inside Dixon courtroom: Follow @whelananddealin, @wbaltv_court, @FOXBaltimore until deputies snatch their phones

A query from Robbie Whelan of the Daily Record to Fenton after the above post:

why is everyone from The Sun so worked up about us losing our tweeters in the courtroom? Was there some sort of reprimand?

Fenton’s response to the question:

i’m not there, all i know is that i’ve been yelled at when i’ve had my phone out, and the deputies threaten to take it away

The above exchange and the subject of this post relate to the usage of Twitter by reporters in the Courthouse this week for the trial of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.

According to a reporter covering the trial, there are signs banning cell phones from being used in the courtroom but apparently it’s not being applied to reporters who are using their silenced PDAs or smartphones to tweet from the trial.

There has been a lot of attention on the Twitter feeds listed above in Fenton’s tweet (Robbie Whelan of the Daily Record, WBAL-TV, and WBFF-TV) as well as the hashtag #dixontrial that has been promoted by people tweeting from inside and outside the courthouse. This has been going on since jury selection started. Additionally, WBAL-TV and WBAL-AM have been doing live updates via Live Wire.

Apparently, some internecine conflict is possibly brewing among reporters from the Baltimore Sun who aren’t tweeting and those from other media sources who are. The Fenton-Whelan exchange may be evidence of it [something Fenton strongly denies to us - his full reply is below.] Other evidence of some friction is the fact that Sun staffers have told reporters who are tweeting from the trial that Judge Sweeney is “pissed” about all the Twitter usage in the courtroom. One reporter even mentioned the Judge staring when reporters pull out their Blackberries.

I’ve heard the reason that staffers at the Sun aren’t getting in on the attention all of the Twitter updates at the trial under the impression that they aren’t allowed to tweet from the courtroom. In fact, I’ve heard Sun staffers even told people asking why they weren’t tweeting that there was a ban on the use of Twitter in the courtroom. The Sun staffers either believe there really is a ban [information that has since come to light indicates this to be the truth] or the Sun itself has some sort of restriction on its reporters from tweeting inside the courtroom. The lack of tweets from Sun reporters covering the trial has shown one of those two things to be the case. Their tweets mostly consist of updates from outside during breaks or before/after proceedings along with retweets of the people who are actually posting updates inside.

[An update at the bottom of this post indicates that there is indeed a rule against usage of PDAs in the courtroom but that it and other rules are not being enforced.]

I have talked to no one who has heard an admonition from the bench at any point about the use of Twitter. While nobody can be in the courtroom for every single second of the proceedings, you would think at least one of the people tweeting would have been there to hear it or the Judge would have notified their bosses in a more direct manner.

More than one person I’ve discussed this with has mentioned that the Sun is really dropping the ball on trial coverage. I would tend to agree. If everyone else is indeed doing it and not being stopped, there is going to be the perception that the Sun just didn’t use all their online resources for some unknown reason. As the trial moves forward, we may see something happen on the Twitter front or we may have to wait until the Mayor’s next trial on perjury charges later this year.

It is a new frontier for courtroom reporting with modern technology. Cellphones have been an issue for years now, with most jurisdictions cracking down heavily on people whose phones ring in the courtroom. I was considering hanging around Courthouse East for at least one day of the trial but figured that I wouldn’t be allowed to tweet via my Blackberry in the courtroom and I prefer liveblogging to tweeting from live events anyway. With those expectations, I decided to not even try to go.

I remember when tweeting started last week there was even an impression by some of a ban on tweeting and everyone assumed all of the tweeting was going to take place in the hallways or outside. As it became evident updates were being posted from inside the courtroom, there was never an update about any restrictions or regulations on the practice. If I were covering the trial as a member of the media under the circumstances detailed above, I would probably be tweeting. Until someone gets told not to, I expect the tweeting to continue and I also expect everyone to stop pretty quickly if the Judge gives the order.

If you want to follow the updates from Twitter feeds covering the trial (including those who aren’t using the #dixontrial hashtag), I have a post up at Inside Charm City with the updates.

IMPORTANT UPDATE
Since posting this I received a link to the media protocol put out for this trial. Item 13 relates to the use of phones in the courthouse and it is reportedly being ignored completely in the press aisles. I’ve also heard that Item 17 on the rules bans food and drink but that people who can’t do without their Starbucks have it with them in the courtroom every morning. I’m trying to get the link to work or get a copy of the file that loads faster.

As far as this goes, the Baltimore Sun is indeed following proper protocol. It just seems odd that the Judge has so little control over his courtroom that he hasn’t cracked down on it yet. Maybe he doesn’t want negative media attention.

Update 2: One thing I didn’t think about. The protocols specifically refer to 100 feet of Courtroom 230. Is that where the trial is still ongoing? The jury selection was moved to another courtroom due to heat issues in the original courtroom that resulted in the collapse of an alternate juror. This means little or nothing in my opinion, but some legal person might look at it with a little more scrutiny.

Update 3
I received the following email from Justin Fenton of the Sun:

Just dropping a friendly note; kinda bewildered how my exchange with Rob Whelan was taken out of context as evidence of some sort of Twitter feud. I am not covering the trial but was enjoying Whelan’s tweets and decided to point some of my followers to them. With our social networking push, we routinely link to other news sources and blogs, so there’s nothing new there. Because I’ve had deputies threaten me over phone use in a courtroom, I made a joke about “follow them till their phones are snatched.” But at the end of the day, I’ve got nothing to do with coverage of this news event, so please don’t tie what I said into any evidence of a “feud” or “internecine conflict.”

I’ve gone back and added content inside brackets in the original post that indicates Fenton denies our original sentence that the exchange between him and Whelan “may be evidence” of some sort of feud over Twitter among reporters at the Courthouse. As Fenton says above, he isn’t covering the trial. I went back and bolded the word “may” that was originally in there to emphasize I didn’t say that it was definite proof. The exchange of tweets happened at the time I was writing this post originally and was going back through a lot of other stuff related to this topic on Twitter Search and other places so I may not have quite gotten the context Fenton meant for his tweets.

Fenton’s original tweet posted above didn’t raise much of an alarm to me, but Whelan’s response asking about everyone from the Sun being worked up over the matter did catch my eye. This information matched everything else I’d been told from other sources today about the reaction inside the courtroom from reporters with the Sun. Fenton hasn’t been there and that definitely rules him out. Taking him at his word that he was just joking around removes his tweets from from evidence of an internecine feud, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t any animosity between reporters from different media outlets over the Twitter issue at trial.

One last update: The Baltimore Sun has now created a Twitter list with people who are in the courtroom tweeting on it.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Narcissism
2. Murder conviction thrown out over juror’s Wikipedia query

I was a bit taken aback at first by Henke’s tweet, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. Henke is a smart guy who has a lot of good ideas, but presenting them tactfully just doesn’t seem to be his strong point online. He probably is a great guy in meatspace as a mutual friend tells me, but I’m only judging my perception of him online (one that plenty of people agree with based on discussions I’ve had.) He just comes across online as a holier-than-thou elitist who knows more than any other conservative while providing the advice that they should follow if they were as smart as he is. I think he would be better served if he dropped the air of pretentiousness and focused as much on how he comes across as he does on his well-thought out ideas.

Treacher’s counterpoint to Henke pretty much sums up the whole situation rather nicely about Henke’s tweet tonight. There is nothing done on Twitter or anywhere else online that isn’t driven in some fashion by desire to have other people see it. That includes everything Henke writes online, everything Treacher writes online, and even this blog post. That’s the whole point of the forum. If you didn’t want to make your ideas known, why bother to even post?

Veterans are generally grateful for the thanks of people, even on public forums on Twitter. The point Henke should have made instead, in my opinion, is that thanking veterans on Twitter alone is a poor substitute for a more substantial or tangible display of gratitude.

So, I’ll close this post by reminding everyone to do something to thank a veteran everyday, not just on Veterans Day or just around the Thanskgiving and Christmas holidays. I don’t care if it’s in public or private. You should also consider something more tangible to help our veterans. I would recommend volunteering or donating to the USO or to Fisher House.

One of OnQSM’s partners, Jayvie Canono, has blogged about the subject as well.

Other blogging:
Robert StacyMcCain

Related posts:

1. Twitter allowed in the Courtroom…. for now

All my liveblogging will be at Inside Charm City. I will also make occasional updates and a wrap-up post after the conference here at OnQSM.

A live stream of the conference can be found here.

The conference’s Twitter stream is @tedxmidatlantic. I have seen hashtags including #tedx and #tedxmidatlantic so far.

No related posts.

Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, will be speaking on enhancing communications within the Department of Defense and between the U.S. military and Americans via social media, the new Defense.gov website and other channels.

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 11:30 AM – 1 PM.
Lunch will be served

Mr. Floyd will discuss using social media to expand communication within the 18 year old to 25 year old demographic, an important audience for recruiting purposes; building a platform to increase feedback from troops and their families; developing a forum for enhanced communication with American citizens; and ensuring operational security of military actions in the age of Twitter and Facebook.

RSVP:
Contact Ellen Birek at Ellen.Birek@ogilvypr.com or at (202) 729-4231

DATE:
Thursday, Nov.5, 2009

TIME:
11:30 AM – 1 PM, Lunch will be served

WHERE:
Ogilvy’s Washington Headquarters
1111 19th St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C., 20036

This Ogilvy Exchange event is free and open to the public.

I will be interested in seeing any transcripts or videos from this event, since I will be at another all-day event in Baltimore that day. I will try to follow-up with someone at Ogilvy for post-event coverage.

Related posts:

1. Beth Schillaci of VillageWorks speaking on Social Media at Goucher

Search traffic in NY-23 for the past month
Search trends in Virginia Governor’s race
New Jersey Governor’s race search trends

Related posts:

1. New Jersey Governor’s race search trends
2. Search trends in Virginia Governor’s race
3. Search traffic in NY-23 for the past month