Recently, I was representing a young man accused of assisting an attempted murder. The action occured at a local shopping mall. Allegedly, two rival gangs met at the mall, didn’t find the girls interesting, so they decided to “dis” each other and see what would happen.  In the end, Facebook had the “last word.”

The boys chose to “take things outside.” Once there, a couple of fights broke out until one of the guys pulled a gun from his backpack and started firing at his attacker and at everyone else in the area.  Two rival gangsters were hit, the participants fled, and the young man who urged the shooter on, became my client.

In preparation for trial, I interviewed him several times. One of the accusations against him was a charge of “crime committed for the benefit of a gang,” a charge in Minnesota that, if found guilty, means a longer prison sentence may be added.

Of course, I talked to my client about his gang involvement. He admitted he’d been a gangster a long time before but since he’d been released from a juvenile program, he decided to get out of the life and start over. He wasn’t a gangster, he told me, and neither was his friend, the alleged shooter.

I have to admit, he was believable. For instance, my client didn’t dress like a gangster, avoided the colors, and the hair cuts. He even looked a little preppy.

Okay, so I went along with his story. After more than 30 years defending crooks, I usually don’t believe much of what they tell me, but this young man seemed convincing.

As we proceeded to trial, I was given all the evidence the prosecutor intended to use against my client. It constituted a pile of paper almost a foot thick–not a good sign if you’re trying to defend someone!

Still, the evidence against him wasn’t the strongest. Maybe, just maybe we could beat the case at trial… Buried deep in the pile were some photos. They intrigued me. I flipped over the pages and stared in horror at copies of Facebook pages.

Not only was the shooter in the photos but so was my client. They were postings from Facebok for each of them. And guess what they were doing on their page? I went to their site.

Each guy was dressed in gang clothing, made gang signs, had what seemed like dozens of guns in the pictures, and smiled as they held up guns and pointed them toward the camera. These guys were really smart and sophisticated…about social media and Facebook.

Audio sound tracks were included that had rap songs glorifying gangsters and videos of each of them threatening the cameras with guns and signs.

At the trial, the prosecutor spent a long time showing the Facebook pages to the jury. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the jury to figure out what was going on and find my client guilty.

Be careful what you post!