Michigan cracks down on tweets

Texters and tweeters in Michigan, beware:

Starting in September, Michigan jurors will no longer be allowed to send text messages, "tweet" or engage in other forms of electronic communication during trials.

The Michigan Supreme Court established the new rule Tuesday in an attempt to prevent distraction and outside information from influencing trial outcomes, according to the National Law Journal. The new rule requires that jurors be instructed ahead of time that electronic devices like Blackberrys and iPhones may not be used in the jury box or during deliberations.

Courts around the country have been grappling with the question of how to keep jurors from using Twitter, Google or text messages to divulge or gather information inappropriately during trial.

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Fla. city bans texting during meetings

After some questioned Commissioner Herb Zischkau's texting during a Deltona, Fla., meeting, officials implemented a ban on texting during public meetings to avoid illegal communication among members or the appearance of such, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Text messages have proved problematic for open records advocates. Most messages aren't archived and can only be retrieved within a few days via a subpoena, which usually takes longer than a few days to obtain.

Text messaging is an everyday habit for many, but if public officials use it to talk about public business, they could be violating the law.

It's a complaint throughout Florida: How do you make text messages a matter of public record if they disappear into thin air with the delete key?

One area city commission has this solution: a ban on texting during public meetings.

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Text messages are public records, Mich. judge rules

The Detroit Free Press anticipates previewing some 1,400 previously unreleased text messages from former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former aide Christine Beatty on Monday. The messages were requested by the newspaper after prosecutors used them for Beatty's perjury case. Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny denied Kilpatrick and Beatty's right to assert a marital privilege, attorney-client privilege or deliberative-process privilege since the text messages were sent on city-issued pagers.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny has ruled that former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former aide Christine Beatty have no right to assert a legal privilege that would allow them to keep previously undisclosed text messages secret.

Kenny is giving lawyers for Kilpatrick and Beatty until Monday to appeal.

"This court does not see the existence of a valid privilege that can be asserted by Ms. Beatty or Mr. Kilpatrick at this juncture," said Kenny, in ordering the release of some 1,400 text messages held by prosecutors and previously under seal.

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Text Messages, FOI (And a Dumb Quote from Moi)

Those supposedly private messages that public officials dash off on their government cellphones to friends and colleagues aren't necessarily private after all.

Courts, lawyers and states are increasingly treating these typed text messages as public documents subject to the same disclosure laws — including the federal Freedom of Information Act — that apply to e-mails and paper records.

"I don't care if it's delivered by carrier pigeon, it's a record," said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri. "If you're using public time or your public office, you're creating public records every time you hit send."

A Texas judge agreed in December, ordering the city of Dallas to turn over e-mails written by some city officials as well as messages sent on handheld devices such as cellphones.

Journalists in Detroit are pressing for a similar ruling. Several media outlets, including the Gannett-owned Detroit Free Press, have sued the city for access to text messages Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick sent using his pager. Gannett also owns USA TODAY's parent company.

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Detroit Mayor's Text Messages: Part of Secret Deal

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick personally approved a cover-up of explosive text messages between him and his top aide Christine Beatty as part of an $8.4-million trial settlement last year, according to documents the city agreed Thursday to make public.

As part of the deal, the records show, the text messages were stashed temporarily in a safe deposit box across from City Hall. Each side got a key, but agreed not to open the box outside the presence of the other. Kilpatrick was to take possession of the messages only after the payout was made to the three former police officers who had sued.

City officials had denied the existence of secret documents since October, when the Free Press first requested them under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act. The paper wanted to know more about why Kilpatrick suddenly agreed to settle the lawsuits brought by the cops who claimed they were retaliated against because of their connections to an investigation of the mayor's security team -- a probe they said would have exposed Kilpatrick's affair with Beatty.

The key record that came to light Thursday, when attorneys for the city said they would no longer oppose its concealment, is a Nov. 1 document marked "Confidential Agreement."

More here.