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Facebook enhancement for drunk driver provides notable example of social-media sentencing

By Douglas A. Berman

This local sentencing story from the Buffalo News, which is headlined "Drunk driver gets into more trouble after posting Facebook photo," provides a new and notable example of what might be called "social-media sentencing."  Here are the details: Ashley M. Sullivan is in Niagara County Jail, and Facebook may be to blame as much as the car crash that killed a Niagara Falls man. Sullivan, 17, of Linden Avenue, North Tonawanda, was sentenced Wednesday afternoon to six months in the County Jail and five years' probation for crashing her car while drunk and killing her boyfriend May 30 on Sweeney Street in North Tonawanda.  She pleaded guilty Nov. 18 to criminally negligent homicide and misdemeanor driving while intoxicated. The Buffalo News has learned that Sullivan went to Florida a month after the crash and posted a photo on her Facebook Web page captioned, "Drunk in Florida...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 28, 2010 (boomark / email).