Facebook and the things that people post there have managed to penetrate almost every aspect of contemporary life. Now a Facebook page has become an issue in a rape trial.
Judge orders rape victim to hand over access to Facebook page
A New Jersey judge has ordered a teenager who accused a man of rape to turn over access to her Facebook page.
Mercer County superior court judge Robert Billmeier this week agreed to a request from David Stevens-Parker’s defence attorney, and the judge said he will privately review two weeks of Facebook postings for any comments related to the alleged rape before deciding whether any can be used in court.
The defence attorney, Andrew Ferencevych, said he wants to see if there are any hints that the sex was consensual. Stevens-Parker, 22, was charged with providing the then-16-year-old Princeton girl with alcohol before sexually assaulting her in April 2013.
Content from social media is routinely used in court, but the New Jersey case is different because it involves a judge ordering an alleged victim to turn over information, said Wendy Patrick, a prosecutor and former chairwoman of the California state bar ethics committee.
“It’s used all the time and the reason is because the internet has become a confessional,” Patrick said. “It’s a place where everyone is an open book.”
Patrick noted that authenticating content found on social media is often the most difficult part of trying to use it as evidence.
The article doesn't provide a lot of details of the case. I would wonder how any conversation held in advance of a sexual encounter could disprove an allegation of rape. A woman might to consent to meet a man with some sexual overtones involved in the conversation and still not have consented to intercourse at the time it happened. The prosecutor is quoted as saying that the victim is willing for the judge to review the page. The argument seems to be about the invasion of privacy that would occur by her being compelled to grant access.