Allen Stanford wants a new trial in part because journalists used Twitter in the courtroom, though his lawyers had no proof that jurors actually saw any tweets about the trial, Reuters reports:
[Lawyer Ali] Fazel also said the case turned into a “media circus” that left the Houston area “saturated with publicity prejudicial to Stanford” even before the six-week trial began.
He said this was perpetuated when U.S. District Judge David Hittner let reporters send Twitter messages from the courtroom, even while the judge and lawyers were talking outside the jury’s presence, and failed to instruct jurors to stay off Twitter.
“This broadcasting is likely to have reached a juror, since Twitter does not require active pursuit of information, but rather, if a friend of the juror’s was following the ‘Stanford trial,’ the tweets might automatically show up on a juror’s Twitter account,” Fazel wrote.
