Facebook isn’t just for ‘friending’ anymore. The social network is also being used as a tool to fight crime, according to a recent survey. Four out of five law enforcement officials use social media to assist in criminal investigations, according to an online survey by LexisNexis.

The websites used most frequently in police officers’ efforts to level criminal charges against suspects include Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, sources say.

The increase in the use of social media networks is due to a common trait among criminals: many of them now use websites like Facebook and Twitter to organize and plan potential crimes.

In addition, criminals who aren’t aware of just how public social media information is, often reveal the nature and extent of their crimes on these websites.

According to Haywood Talcove, the CEO of Government Solutions, police officers are using social media networks as a “tool” because they are just “as valuable as a police cruiser or a handgun.”

Talcove also told reporters that criminals frequently display evidence of crimes they commit because criminals, just like newlyweds or your high school friends with new babies, “have the same desire to share and to show-off.”

As a result of this compulsion to share, police officers are often able to gather information on crimes through tweets, Facebook posts, pictures, and other ubiquitous elements of social media.

Interestingly though, while law enforcement officials are spending a remarkable amount of time surfing the web for evidence of crimes, more than 80 percent of these officials have no formal training in how to mine the websites for information.

In the words of Susan Crandall, one of the leaders of the LexisNexis study, police officers are often taking their own anecdotal knowledge about social networks and simply “teaching themselves on the job.”

Still, despite this lack of training, police officers do not seem to be running afoul of the Constitution, as the evidence obtained through social media is upheld in 87 percent of the cases where it is challenged, sources say.

So, as criminals continue to turn to social media to plan and boast about their crimes, more and more criminal defense attorneys will likely represent clients who are behind bars after foolishly posting evidence of a crime on a common website.

And things could soon get worse for criminals. According to Crandall, law enforcement officials’ use of social media is just “at the beginning of reaching its full potential.”

In all criminal defense cases each side—defense and prosecution—are entitled to discovery. Discovery is provided for by the Rules of Criminal Procedure so that neither side has the advantage of surprise. It’s the “you show me yours, I’ll so you mine” theory. Today however, because of social media, it’s not only about what you receive in formal discovery it’s also about what you do in your social tech savvy life. With Twitter, Facebook , google +, blogging, etc, what you write and say in public may come back to haunt you.

The Bottom Line:  If you say in court you don’t know somebody and evidence is introduced that you are Facebook friends, the jury or Judge will lose all credibility for the balance of your case. This would also apply if you had an alibi defense saying you were one place, but your social media indicated you were somewhere else. Be careful about what you say and do in your personal life in regards to your social media presence. Remember whatever you say, or show, it’s out there forever. If you are ever arrested all of your social media becomes “discovery”.   I can help can guide you through what will be used as admissible against you and what won’t ever come in to court. Put my number in your mobile, you can reach me anytime:             513-260-2099