There was a “win” this week for social media in courtrooms when the B.C. Supreme Court altered its rules to allow limited use of electronic communication devices in the public gallery during trials.

Lawyers and accredited members of the media will be allowed to text/tweet during trials at the Supreme and Provincial Courts and members of the public will be allowed to text/tweet from the galleries of the Court of Appeal.  The premise is to embrace social media to allow for greater public access to the legal system.

This decision makes B.C. the third province, following Alberta and Nova Scotia, to allow social media devices into the courtroom.

Obviously there are concerns: the privacy of witnesses, the speed of the dissemination of information (maybe this isn’t a concern for some!), and the potential for the use to interfere with the substantive matters before the Court.  A Huffington Post article on this move cited a decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court to throw out a death row inmate’s murder conviction after one juror slept and another tweeted (such gems as: “The coffee sucks here” and “It’s all over”) during the proceedings.  It makes you wonder… maybe the sleepy juror would have been more alert if he was tasked with tweeting information in 140 character bites!