Facebook status update saves man from jail
Facebook seems to have contributed to countless broken love affairs, divorces, and insane levels of jealousy. People pry into your friend lists and updates until they sometimes reach conclusions far beyond reality. How lovely, then, that a mere status update appears to have saved a Harlem man from jail.
According to The New York Times, Rodney Bradford decided to update his status with a call from the soul. "Where's my pancakes?" is the Times' translation of a status update it says was written in "indecipherable street slang." The fact that Bradford did this at 11:49 a.m. on October 17, using his father's computer, meant that he would not have to suffer pancakes of a more distasteful nature in the local penitentiary.
(Credit:
CC Slushpup/Flickr)
Bradford, you see, was arrested the next day for robbery. However, after he was booked, his lawyer was intelligent enough to update the district attorney with news of Bradford's Facebooking.
A subpoena was swiftly flung the way of the Zuckerbergville crew so that they might reveal whether the timing and location of the update were correct. They were, meaning Bradford could update his criminal status to "cleared."
There are some, however, who are not entirely convinced the charges should have been dropped. Joseph Pollini, a teacher at the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the Times: "With a username and password, anyone can input data in a Facebook page."
He also offered a dire warning of the infinite dastardliness of people Bradford's age: "Some of the brightest people on the Internet are teenagers. They know the Internet better than a lot of people. Why? Because they use it all the time."
Oh, why is it so hard to give young people the benefit of the doubt--especially on Facebook?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
As your article points out, its contributed to countless marriage breakups, and it even put one man in jail after he sent out an update from the computer of a house he was in the process of breaking into, so its nice to see that this innocent man was able to prove his innocence.
Heck, it could even count as updating by uploading photos from DS...
The likelihood of him purposely setting this up for evidence is less likely, though.
According to the NYT piece, the guy was already facing a separate robbery charge. Could it be that the guy is not innocent of the more recent charge and that maybe he thought he'd pull a fast one by claiming a status update as an alibi? Then his defense lawyer says the suggestion of an accomplice updating his status "implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil." WHAT?!?! Criminal genius?!?!?! Dr. Evil?!?!? Are you kidding me?
... Except my daughters, of course. Pure as the driven snow, both of 'em.
I'm going to quote George Carlin here:
"I have a son in public school who hasn't shot any of his classmates yet. But he does sell drugs to your honor student, plus he knocked up your daughter!"
(On a slightly more topical note, I have to agree - the case must have been incredibly weak if a simple Facebook update is enough to invalidate it.)
And I quote: "?the Facebook entry was just 'the icing on the cake,' since his client had the other alibis."
I'm also glad I use Loopt & Foursquare on my iPhone 3GS because this will store where I was any time I check in.
Plus, I'm also glad about this: it used to be finding out what cell phone tower a person was using to triangulate their location was something only done with subpoenas and a lot of tech work. Now, it's as simple as opening an app on my iPhone. And if this type of evidence can be used to help convict, it should also be used to help clear.
And the other parts of the alibi, the two parents, wasn't accepted because he spent two weeks on Rikers Island before Facebook responded. And the DA said that Facebook was "key" to dropping the charges.
I don't know if he's innocent or guilty, doesn't really matter when responding to the Facebook portion of the article. I'll assume he's innocent, based on the fact that he is a fellow pancake lover.
Important that folks stop adding their own soundtrack to what are the facts of the case.
If the parents alibis weren't enough, then facebook truly was icing on the cake.
- by kamyar07 November 26, 2009 1:54 AM PST
- "Some of the brightest people on the Internet are teenagers. They know the Internet better than a lot of people. Why? Because they use it all the time." - Hate this quote, cnet writers should of at least clarified it since it can be interpreted into two ways even though most of us know what they are trying to say.
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