Source: https://nylawblog.typepad.com/suigeneris/2016/06/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 07:47:56+00:00

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Judges and social media: according to most judicial ethics commissions, it’s a dicey proposition that doesn’t always work out well for judges. As I’ve discussed in past columns, more often than not, judges are chastised by judicial ethics commissions for their online interactions. In many cases, the conclusions are based on knee jerk reactions to “newfangled technology” and are grounded in an inherent misunderstanding of the nature of online platforms and interactions.
Such is the case with the Supreme Court of New Mexico’s decision last week in State v. Thomas, No. 34,042. In this case, the defendant contended that social media postings by the district court judge exhibited judicial bias, where, during the pendency of the trial, the judge posted comments to his election campaign Facebook page regarding his role in the case and his opinion of its outcome.
After issuing this unfortunate mandate, the Court then proceeded to provide some conflicting guidelines designed to assist judges who choose to interact on social media.
So, essentially, the Court’s position seems to be that judges should avoid all public communications when interacting online, even communications as benign as, “Here’s a photo of my new granddaughter. Isn’t she cute?” or “What a game last night! Go Bills!” The Court asserts that it’s not creating a bright line rule prohibiting social media use by judges, but the apparent prohibition against public communications —which are the very essence of social media — seemingly belies this claim. For that reason, the Court missed the mark and I would respectfully suggest that the Court’s conclusions regarding judges using social media will not withstand the test of time.
Regular readers of my column know that every summer I work on the annual update to the book, Criminal Law In New York, which I co-author with Judge Karen Morris. During the course of my research for the update, I read thousands of criminal law cases handed down over the past year with an eye toward locating those holdings that affect substantive issues relating to the Penal Code. And, given my passion for the intersection of law and technology, I also take an interest in those cases where technology impacts the Penal Code. People v. Marion, 49 Misc.3d 562 (Crim. Ct. City of New York, 2015) is just such a case.
From January 17, 2015 to April 17, 2015, I have received over 100 Instagram messages from the defendant. Specifically, one of the messages stated, “I wish you would let me find you tonight” and “I'll always be by your side.” From January 17, 2015 to April 8, 2015, I have received approximately 10–15 emails from the defendant at both my work and personal email addresses. From January 17, 2015 to January 19, 2015, I have received approximately 80 [calls] from a phone number which I know belongs to the defendant.
I believe that the court missed the mark with this conclusion, both in terms of: 1) its assertion that subsection 2 covered the alleged conduct and 2) its conclusion that subsection 3 required that the conduct occur at the physical workplace.
First, subsection 2 requires a higher standard of harm —that material harm be shown — whereas subsection 3 only requires that the conduct is “likely to result in harm.” Undoubtedly the reason that a lower standard of harm was required for subsection 3 is due to the fact that individuals have more at stake when they are stalked at work; not only are they emotionally affected, they may be financially affected as well. Thus, a lower level of harm is required to be shown.
So the court’s assertion that subsection 2 necessarily covers all situations where emails are sent to a person’s business email address is incorrect. A person may receive emails at a business address that are “likely to result in harm” due to the possibility that the employer may discover them but do not actually result in harm as required by subsection 2.
Next, the statute specifically forbids repeated contact that includes “initiating communication…at such person’s place of employment or business.” Sending an email to an individual’s work address undoubtedly constitutes the act of communicating with someone at their place of business. That’s the entire point of a “work” email address versus a personal one. A work email address is where people receive the vast majority of communications relating to their work, and oftentimes, employers have full access to all emails received in that account.
For those reason, I submit that the court interpreted this subsection far too literally, through a narrow, 20th century lens. I am confident that this myopic view of Penal Law 125.45(3) will not withstand the test of time.
My regular readers know that I typically focus on the intersection of law and technology in this column. But occasionally I come across an issue or case unrelated to technology that merits further comment. Edwards v. Nicolai, 160830/13, a New York County Supreme Court decision, is just such a case.
At issue in this case was whether the plaintiff’s claims alleging gender discrimination could survive a motion to dismiss. The plaintiff alleged that because she was fired due to jealousy on the part of her employer’s wife, who believed that she was “too cute,” that she was discriminated against based on her gender.
Justice Shlomo Hagler completely misses the point. Certainly both men and women can be attractive. But in this case the issue was whether the plaintiff was terminated either because she was attractive to her male employer or because his wife believed he felt that way. In other words, was she terminated due to her uniquely feminine traits that may have appealed to her employer, a (presumably) heterosexual male?
Contrary to the Court’s assertion, she did not allege that she was terminated because she was an objectively attractive person; she was terminated because she was a woman - one who was believed to be attractive to her heterosexual male employer.
Had she been an objectively attractive male, this would never have been an issue since her employer’s wife would not have felt threatened in that situation. Instead, the allegations were grounded in the claim that she was terminated because she was a woman and her employer was a man. The termination occurred due to her uniquely feminine qualities—traits that would not have been appealing to her employer if she were a man.
This case sets dangerous precedent and allows an employer to fire an employee on the grounds that s/he was attracted to said employee due to his or her gender. The terminations would not occur because the employer was, as Judge Hagler asserts, attractive, but would instead occur because the employer-given his or her unique sexual orientation-found the employee attractive specifically because of his or her gender.
This ruling will give employers a free pass to terminate employees based solely on their gender, as long as the employer can claim that s/he happens to be attracted to that particular gender. If that’s not impermissible gender discrimination, then I’m not sure what is.
California legislators and court officials are taking a stand. It’s a murky, misguided one, lacking in common sense, but it’s a stand nonetheless. It’s a stand against progress, the Internet, and the looming threat of this newfangled thing called social media. And they’re going to win this fight, no matter what the cost to the jury and judicial system.
At least, that seems to be their end goal, but I could be wrong. It’s a bit hard to tell since they’re so caught up in preventing conduct that’s been around as long as the jury system (but now wears a 21st century mask) that it’s difficult to discern the rationale behind their muddled thought processes.
Let me back up. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let’s start with the facts. There is California legislation pending that is supported by state court officials that will result in fines being imposed on jurors (up to $1,500) for using the Internet to research and communicate about pending cases. This legislation was drafted in response to the purported threat of increasing mistrials due to juror misconduct.
Now let’s face reality. Mistrials have always occurred due to juror misconduct. Jurors have always disregarded court instructions and researched cases using outside resources. This is nothing new.
In the past, jurors read newspapers or watched the evening news to obtain information about pending cases. Jurors also discussed the cases with their spouses or neighbors. Nowadays, jurors continue to use more traditional methods to learn about cases and parties, but also have the Internet available to them and conduct online research and share their experiences via social networks.
The only difference is that jurors’ impermissible online activities can now be documented and tracked. It’s a simple matter to access digital data evidencing a blatant disregard of a court’s instructions, but it’s another matter entirely to prove that a juror read a newspaper or spoke to another person about a pending case in violation of a judicial order to refrain from doing so. So, because the violative digital interactions are more easily preserved, more mistrials may be arising due to those particular actions.
But it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not the behavior that has changed, it’s the method. Jurors are violating court orders in more trackable ways. And now that judges can prove jurors are ignoring them, heads are gonna roll! Jurors heads. Ok not their heads. But their wallets will most certainly be impacted. And that’ll teach ‘em, right?
One thing it will undoubtedly teach them is that sitting on a jury is a risky—and potentially costly—business. Instead of encouraging citizens to participate in the democratic process of serving on a jury, this legislation will have the opposite effect. People will be more reluctant to serve on juries and our judicial system will suffer. Jurors will find ways to avoid jury duty (and potential fines) and the concept of “ a jury of your peers” will become an antiquated concept that is so 20th century.
If that’s the goal of the California legislature, then Bravo! They’re well on their way to stifling voluntary citizen participation in the jury process. But it that’s not the intention, then perhaps it would be wise to reconsider penalizing jurors for simply being human in the 21st century.
Once again, social media and the law collide, this time in the Western District of New York. In March, United States Magistrate Judge Marian Payson handed down a decision in Thurmond v. Bowman, 2016 WL 1295957 addressing allegations that the plaintiff should be sanctioned for spoliation after revising the privacy settings to her Facebook account.
Two interesting issues were addressed in this case, which arose from claims that the defendants violated the Fair Housing Act and other statutes when they declined to rent an apartment to the plaintiff after learning that she had two children: 1) whether spoliation sanctions were warranted for the alleged inadvertent deletion by the Plaintiff of 3 Facebook posts and 2) whether sanctions were warranted due to the plaintiff’s revision of the privacy settings of her Facebook account after being warned by the court to preserve there status quo of her Facebook account.
First, the court considered the motion for spoliation sanctions. The defense alleged that the Facebook postings at issue were relevant to the Plaintiff’s claims of emotional distress. They asserted that they had accessed the Plaintiff’s publicly viewable Facebook posts and had printed out many of them. Then a few days later—after the court had admonished the Plaintiff to preserve the status quo of her Facebook account—many of the posts were no longer publicly available and it was later learned that three of the posts consisting of photos of the Plaintiff’s children had been deleted from her account. The motion seeking spoliation sanctions then followed.
So let this be a lesson to you: tread carefully when it comes to advising clients regarding preserving social media account information, especially when litigation is pending. And always ensure that the social media data—all of the digital data, not just the printed version—is preserved and available for disclosure. Otherwise spoliation sanctions will undoubtedly follow, to the detriment of your client’s case.
Every year, as I work on the annual update to the book, Criminal Law In New York, which I co-author with Judge Karen Morris, I take notice when I come across cases where social media and criminal law intersect. People v. Lemons, 2016 WL 1735472, which was pointed out to me by my fellow Daily Record columnist Scott Malouf, is just such a case.
In 2012, the American Bar Association amended the comments to Model Rule 1.1 to include the requirement that lawyers “should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology, engage in continuing study and education and comply with all continuing legal education requirements to which the lawyer is subject.” (Emphasis added). Since that time, more than 20 states have followed suit and required that their attorneys likewise educate themselves about the ever-changing legal technology landscape.
Now the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct is proposing changes to the Rules of Professional conduct themselves (as opposed to the comments) (online: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/rules/comments/PDF/ProfConduct.pdf). After reviewing the ABA’s 2012 updates to the Model Rules, the Committee suggested that a number changes be enacted that directly affect New York lawyers’ obligations regarding technology. Let’s take a look at a few of the more notable recommendations.
First there’s the proposed change to Rule 1.0 which expands the definition of "computer-accessed communication” and clarifies that it includes any “electronic communication or any other form of recorded communication or recorded representation,” including those specifically enumerated in the rule.
There were also proposed changes to Rule 1.4, which addresses lawyer communications with clients. The proposed changes amend the current role to replace the more narrow term ''telephone calls" with the broader “communications,” which obviously encompasses the ever-expanding array of digital communications.
Next, Rule l.6(c), which addresses confidentiality of information issues, was also touched by the proposed changes. The new version expands upon the current version and requires that lawyers themselves take reasonable efforts to safeguard client information instead of simply obligating them to ensure that their agents do so, as the current version of the rule now requires.
In the past I’ve criticized the current version of the rule to the extent that it requires lawyers to supervise and oversee those with expertise outside the realm of the lawyer’s training, such as IT expertise. To the extent that the revised language simply requires lawyers to take steps to ensure that they’ve vetted the third parties to whom they outsource IT or data storage, then this language makes sense. This is especially so given the revision to the comments to Rule 1.1 (discussed above) which requires lawyers to stay abreast of changes in technology. In other words, lawyers must take steps to educate themselves about technology so that they’ll have a basic understanding sufficient to allow them to vet third party technology providers.
At least, that’s my perspective. If yours differs, make sure your voice is heard! The Bar is now seeking comments from New York lawyers regarding proposed changes. Comments should be sent via email to rulecomments@nycourts.gov through June 1st.

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