Surviving The Legal System With Facebook

What Up with three exclamation points indeed.

Our man here, Rodney Bradford, is responsible for our legal system's first-ever Facebook alibi.

(Though, in the past, there has been Facebook incriminating evidence. If you break in to someone's house, don't stop to check your Facebook on their computer. If you must, at least remember to sign out before you leave.)

A mugging at gunpoint occurred in Brooklyn on October 17th at 11:50am. Rodney was picked up for it the next day, and it went to trial. Among his witnesses and alibis putting him in Harlem at the time of the robbery was a Facebook status update.

He wrote on the site, wondering where his pancakes were. The New York Times didn't print the exact text, but claims that the query was written in "street slang."

How does one wonder about pancakes in street slang?

The (perhaps) first ever legal precedent for a Facebook alibi was written thusly: On the phone with this fat chick… where my IHOP.

The fat chick in question, according to Rodney's lawyer, is Rodney's pregnant girlfriend.

The lawyer explained to CNN that Rodney had several other alibis going for him, which is good. If our legal system has any value at all, this is the first and last time a Facebook alibi will work. All you need is a username, a password, and a body. A clever geek wouldn't even need someone to be sitting there.

In the end, all a Facebook status update proves is that a computer was on and connected to the internet.

So don't go knocking over banks while your girlfriend stays at home logged in to your Facebook account posting away like mad. It won't work.