Alibi Defense: Facebook Status Proves Defendant Didn’t Do It

The New York Times reports that Rodney Bradford, a 19-year-old living in New York, has been cleared of charges that he committed a robbery when his defense attorney provided proof to the District Attorney that his client had actually been at his father’s apartment, making an entry on Facebook.

The DA subpoenaed the records from Facebook which showed that someone had logged into Facebook from Bradford’s father’s apartment in Harlem and had made an entry on Bradford’s page at the time Bradford was supposedly robbing another person.

Facebook has been involved in various kinds of criminal cases before.  For instance, jurors have been dismissed from juries for making inappropriate comments on Facebook in the midst of a trial.  And in civil cases, Facebook has been used to serve subpoenas or other notices on parties to a lawsuit.

But this is the first time that Facebook has been used to show that a defendant was actually not guilty of a crime because he had an alibi.