Twitter and justice

Without question, the trial of Eamonn Lillis for the murder of his wife Celine Cawley (Lillis was convicted of manslaughter) was the most attention-grabbing Irish court case since the Joe O’Reilly trial. There were a number of new toys for the Courts Service to play with in the Criminal Courts of Justice, but journalists had their new toys too, namely Twitter.

Every day during the Lillis trial, freelance journalist Abigail Rieley was among those who regularly tweeted updates. These were quickly retweeted, and word about Rieley’s messages spread. For anyone who wanted to hear from the courts immediately and regularly, Twitter was the place to go. It broke the news of the verdict first (citation). The Lillis Trial even had its own hashtag.

With news coming from reputable sources like Rieley, Twitter presents an opportunity for immediate online journalism like never before. There’s no editor, no middle-man, just the publisher and the reader. Therein lies a problem however – not every Twitterer is a reputable source so surely the potential to prejudice a case is now huge.

Maybe next time round the likes of Mr Justice Barry White should advise juries to ignore press coverage... and shut off their TweetDecks for a little while.