The Facebook Jury Instruction

As I was perusing my typical news sources this morning, I came across this article about a Tarrant County juror who was excused from a civil case and then charged with contempt for trying to “friend” the defendant in the case on Facebook.  That’s the world in which we live, I suppose.  Everything is real-time, social media is pervasive, and folks are indiscriminate about what they do online.  It has already been and will continue to be interesting to see how the trial judges tackle this issue in their instructions to venire panels.  It is probably prudent to have a standard Facebook jury instruction.