California Court Upholds Conviction Based on MySpace Bragging

Watch out what you say online: it could be used against you in court.  As briefly reported by Eric Goldman, an appellate court in California just upheld a vehicular manslaughter conviction based on the defendant’s MySpace post that bragged “I have a really bad habit of racing random people.”

In 2006, Henry Chavez died in a high-speed crash on Highway 101 in Oxnard, California (just up the coast from Los Angeles). Witnesses testified that two Mustang drivers had been racing with each other around 10:30 a.m. According to witnesses, both Mustangs were weaving through freeway traffic at 100 to 115 miles per hour. At 10:32 a.m., Chavez lost control of his car as he tried to change lanes. His car struck the center guardrail, skidded across the road, struck a car on an on-ramp, then flew off the ramp and rolled into a strawberry field. Chavez was killed. The other driver did not stop.

Eventually the police found the woman who had been seen driving her Mustang alongside Chavez that morning and charged her with manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. At trial, she admitted that she had been driving her Mustang on the 101 at the same time.  But the woman claimed that she was an innocent bystander who had just been trying to get out of Chavez’s way.

The prosecutor introduced testimony by people who had seen the woman racing. But the prosecutor’s most powerful evidence came from the defendant herself. The day before the accident, the defendant had posted a message on her MySpace profile: “If you find me on the freeway and you can keep up I have a really bad habit of racing random people.”

The jury believed the MySpace post and convicted the driver of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run. The judge later sentenced the driver to one year in prison.  A California appellate court just upheld the conviction (PDF) based on the MySpace post.

The lesson is clear: prosecutors are willing to use evidence from social networking sites as proof in criminal cases, and courts are willing to admit it.  This woman’s boastful post about her love of street racing came back to haunt her in court, and may have cost her a year behind bars.  Whether it is fair or not, the reality is that prosecutors and police know to check social networking sites for evidence of crimes and for statements that can be used against the defendant.

Think about it: What do you have on your profile that could be used against you?  Could anything you say be taken out of context?  Would your privacy settings allow anybody to see it without a subpoena?

Tweet This Post