Friday column: Sometimes tweets not all that sweet

Maybe I'm a Luddite, but my sympathies are with Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles in his Twitter tilt tug-of-war with Charlie Villanueva.

The 6-11 third-year forward tweeted (for the technologically challenged among us, that’s posting a note to his Twitter feed on the Internet) at halftime of a recent game between the Bucks and the Boston Celtics.

The post, received by some 1,600 or so who subscribe to Villanueva's feed, was short and inoffensive, but Skiles was upset at what the tweeting suggested."
"You know, (we) don’t want to blow it out of proportion," Skiles said. “But anything that gives the impression that we’re not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business."

Skiles didn’t fine the third-year player but made it clear he thinks refraining from tweeting in the middle of a game was a "no-brainer."

But the coach, old school as he is, might also think it a no-brainer for jury members to refrain from doing cell-phone Internet investigations in the middle of a trial — especially when they've been admonished not to.

And apparently he would be wrong.

A Tuesday New York Times story indicates playing Sherlock Holmes is all the rage among jurors, leading to mistrials and an enormous waste of time and money.

John Schwartz's Times story begins with a federal drug-trial juror admitting to the judge he had secretly been doing research on the case over the Internet, "directly violating the judge's instructions and centuries of legal rules."

The story continues: "But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock. Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing."

A hallmark of the U.S. justice system is the principle that jurors are to decide a case only on the evidence a judge rules admissible. Now they're basing judgment on whatever they can dig up on their BlackBerrys during lunch. Schwartz writes that jurors doing Google searches or posting trial information — another legal no-no — "is wreaking havoc on trials around the country."

Which is costly, but not lethal. For lethal, you have to go to Chatsworth, Calif., where last year a Metrolink engineer sailed through a red light and hit an oncoming train, killing 24 and injuring 130. The engineer, who was among those killed, was text-messaging close to the time of the crash.

Now, it's a long way from Villanueva's halftime tweeting to a lethal accident. On the other hand, Maryland just moved to ban text-messaging while operating a vehicle, which means that that kind of distracted driving probably is being done everywhere.

So my plea to the technocrats out there — especially those on the road — is the same as Skiles' to Villanueva: Hey, pay attention.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.