The criminal case doesn't start until Monday, June 10, but the attorneys for both sides have been tweeting like crazy about the upcoming George Zimmerman trial.
So far Mark O'Mara has tweeted 235 times and has 3395 followers. The full text of his comments can be found at his website George Zimmerman Legal Case. The Crump group has been even more prolific with tweets, but they don't have their own website for the case. Does 1871 tweets and 12,481 followers mean they have the edge to win?
So much for the old fashioned problem of trying the case in the press; trying the case by tweet is now de rigueur. According to the attorneys, speaking to the AP in April, social media gives people a way to be engaged in the case. And, maybe they can test which topics are trending and use this information. I question when they will have time to prepare their respective cases so they can speak convincingly to the only audience that counts, the jurors. Or will all their tweeting make finding jurors who haven't heard about the case and formed an opinion like searching for the Holy Grail?
And what does all this cost? A technical staff of social media savvy people cannot be cheap. But of course part of their job is to raise the money to pay for the attorneys. You can donate to the George Zimmerman Defense Fund from another website, the GZ Defense Fund. The Justice for Trayvon Martin Fund, has some famous contributors, but "The funds are for the Foundation to support awareness of civil rights, social justice and the quality of life for youth who are within racial, religious, cultural, or other minority groups considered to be ‘different’ from the so-called ‘mainstream." The same wording can be found at the ParksCrump , but again it is unclear whether "supporting an awareness of social justice" and paying the attorneys are one and the same.
I think we are at the point of too much information. Tweeting by every Tom, Dick, Harry and me included, does not really forward the fact finding mission required to conduct a fair trial and determine whether or not George Zimmerman should spend the rest of his life in jail.
Article first published as Why Are These Attorneys Tweeting About the George Zimmerman Trial? on Technorati.
