Sonoma County Lawyer Blog

In 2008, the Illinois legislature enacted a law authored by state Sen. John Waterman barring most registered sex offenders from using Facebook or other social networking sites. The law was challenged and upheld by a district court in June 2012.

Displeased with that court's decision, the ACLU of Indiana filed an appeal. The 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Chicago in late January overturned the lower court's decision and ruled that the Indiana law was unconstitutional.

Sen. Waterman has stated he will pursue new measures to protect children online from the dangers of sexual predators.

Sex Offenders Fight Back

Sex offenders have organized legal battles, fighting for their right to be online. They were successful in February 2012 when a federal judge in Louisiana struck down a state law barring sex offenders from using Facebook and other social media on First Amendment grounds.

Efforts to restrict sex offenders across the U.S. seem to reach the same obstacle.

Continue reading "Is Facebook Safe? It might Not Be for Your Teen" »

A 2010 survey conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) concluded that 81 percent of divorce attorneys had seen an increase in the use of social media as evidence -- with Facebook topping the charts at 66 percent. In the more than two years since the disquieting AAML survey, Facebook has grown to 955 million monthly active users. Chances are your spouse and the friends and family of your spouse use Facebook.

I have made it no secret, Facebook is the first place I go when I get a family law case. I have been able to get very favorable results in court based on the opposing party's Facebook posts. However, I have also had clients hurt by their posts.

Jdsupra.com identifies the following five tips for Facebook use during your divorce.

Continue reading "Facebook Evidence in A Santa Rosa Divorce: Five Tips for Protecting Yourself" »

In US vs. Jones, the US Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the attachment of a Global Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device to an individual's vehicle, and subsequent use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements on public streets, constitutes a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that police cannot attach a GPS device to a criminal suspect's car to track their movements without first obtaining a search warrant.

While the Government contended that no "search" occurred, the Court thought differently. It is beyond dispute that a vehicle is an "effect" as that term is used in the Amendment. United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 12 (1977). Based on this, the Court reasoned that the Government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a "search."

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor a vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

"By attaching the device to the Jeep" that Jones was using, "officers encroached on a protected area," Scalia wrote.

This is probably not the end of these types of cases making their way to the US Supreme Court because the court did not rule on whether the exact search was reasonable, which means even if the Fourth Amendment applies in cases like this, it's possible that the use of GPS devices may be considered acceptable in some circumstances.

Continue reading "US Supreme Court Holds That Law Enforcement Need A Warrant Before GPS Tracking Can Be Used" »

Generally in court, documentary evidence such as records, letters, bills, contracts, and similar writings have to be authenticated or identified before being admitted in evidence as genuine.

In today's society, information obtained on social networking websites is being used in court as evidence against the party who made the post.

This seemed to have begged the question, how do you properly authenticate a social networking post? That question has been answered in People vs. Valdez.

In Valdez, supra, a jury convicted Vincent Julian Valdez, Jr., of two counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a firearm, and two counts of street terrorism (Pen. Code, § 186.22, subd. (a)), arising from two separate drive-by shootings. Valdez asserts challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction of street terrorism by arguing that the trial court erroneously admitted pages from his MySpace social networking site that included his gang moniker ("Yums"), a photograph of him making a gang hand signal, and written notations including "T.L.F.," "YUM $ YUM," "T.L.F.'s '63 Impala," "T.L.F., The Most Wanted Krew by the Cops and Ladiez," and "Yums. You Don't Wanna F wit[h] this Guy."

Continue reading "Contents of MySpace Page Are Sufficient To Establish Its Authenticity" »

Being to open on social networks has led to a surplus of evidence in divorce cases.  Studies have shown throughout the United States that a growing number of family law attorneys have used or faced evidence pulled from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years.  About one in five adults uses Facebook for flirting, according to a 2008 report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

I litigated a child custody case last year where I was able to use a father's adult advertisement on MySpace to obtain a custody order that was very favorable to my client.

So the next time you post something on a social network site, you should ask yourself at least one question, whose watching?