There’s a Facebook group for pretty much every interest and hobby, and that includes groups dedicated to monitoring high-profile murder trials.

Thousands of true crime followers are closely monitoring developments of court cases on social media, and while legal analysts say that kind of public engagement is generally positive, it can come with some serious pitfalls.

‘It really is a service’

Sarah Densmore is among those captivated by the William Sandeson murder trial in Halifax last year.

Sandeson, a former Dalhousie University medical student, was convicted in June 2017 of first-degree murder in the drug-deal death of Taylor Samson. The body of the Dalhousie University physics student has never been found.

Despite her busy schedule as a marketing executive with three children, two dogs, and a husband, Densmore says she would find free time in her day to look for updates on the court proceedings.

“It wasn’t really until the middle of the trial that I’d really become interested in it,” says Densmore. “It was the first time I’d ever joined anything like a local Facebook group around a local trial.”

While the trial is over, a Facebook group dedicated to the case still has more than 1,400 members, many of whom still post as they await a decision on Sandeson’s request to appeal his conviction.

Another high-profile Halifax trial was that of Christopher Garnier, who was convicted in December 2017 of second-degree murder in the death of off-duty police officer Catherine Campbell. Garnier is also seeking an appeal of his conviction, and nearly 700 people continue to follow the case in a dedicated Facebook group.

Over the course of both trials, the members offered their own theories and opinions about what really happened, and scrutinized testimony from witnesses. They shared court documents, links to media coverage, and posted tweets from reporters who were live-tweeting from court.

Densmore says it was interesting to see how people interpreted evidence and testimony differently, and how witnesses would respond to different types of interrogation tactics. She says the experience also made her more analytical.

“Even in the media’s coverage … if there’s a Twitter feed, I’ll follow a couple of different reporters and you’ll definitely see where certain reporters will pick up different information,” she says.

“Trials move very, very fast. The questioning, the evidence moves quickly, so you almost have to view a couple of different reporters on the exact same platform, like Twitter, to really kind of get it all. And the dedication on these Facebook pages to get all of that information, to organize it, to keep the public informed. I mean, it really is a service.”

Social media allows for public engagement in court system

Social media expert Ross Simmonds says we’ve never seen this kind of public engagement in the court system before, and it’s exactly why social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter were created.

“I think it’s beneficial for people to be in the know of what’s going on in their community. It allows us to stay in the loop, and I think there’s a real benefit to that,” says Simmonds.

“One of the mantras of Facebook is to make the world more connected, and in many ways, that’s what these groups offer us the ability to do.”

Experts are also starting to take notice of public engagement in high-profile trials.

Margo Watt, a forensic psychologist and psychology professor at Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., conducted a survey of more than 500 people who followed the Christopher Falconer trial on Twitter from across Canada and three other countries.

In a trial that captivated the usually sleepy community of Pictou County, Falconer was convicted in January 2014 of first-degree murder in the death of Amber Kirwan, a 19-year-old woman who vanished after leaving a pool hall in New Glasgow, N.S. on Oct. 9, 2011.

“They resoundingly said that they felt more engaged. They felt they learned something over and above what other media were providing them,” Watt told CTV Atlantic at the time. “They felt that they understood the process more.”

Interestingly, most of the survey participants said they disagreed with the guilty verdict.

“So they were less persuaded by the evidence. They weren’t so convinced that it was compelling,” said Watt. “They weren’t so convinced that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Court reporting leads to new electronic device guidelines

New guidelines around the use of electronic devices and technology in Nova Scotia courtrooms were introduced after the Falconer trial.

Reporters are typically allowed to tweet updates from criminal trials, unless the jury is absent, or if a publication ban is in place. Tweeting is also not permitted during the jury selection process.

“If you can be in the courtroom virtually, by somebody’s Twitter feed, then you can learn more,” says Robert Currie, director of the Law and Technology Institute at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law. “You can figure out more about what’s going on.”

Currie says that’s generally a good thing, but it can lead to problems, especially when the time comes to select a jury.

How social media derailed a Maritime murder trial

In July 2012, social media derailed a high-profile murder trial in Moncton before it even began.

Fred Prosser was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his former girlfriend, Sabrina Patterson, but the judge declared a mistrial just as the prosecution was about to begin presenting its case.

“After the jury was put together, everyone went home for the weekend. The victim’s family Googled all of the jurors who had been selected and they found that one of them was a member of a Facebook group that expressed the opinion that, to put it lightly, that Fred Prosser was guilty,” says Currie.

“But she had not disclosed this when asked if there was any reason she could not decide the case objectively.”

A new jury was selected and Prosser was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder in December 2014, but Currie points out that a mistrial is a drain on the justice system and can be devastating for those affected by the case.

“The whole thing had to be started again from zero, lots of taxpayer money wasted, lots of distress, lots of upset for many players in the justice system, particularly for the witnesses’ families,” he says.

Currie says it’s one thing to discuss a case with friends in a coffee shop, but it’s another thing entirely when thousands of people are conversing about a case and expressing opinions on social media, especially in smaller communities where there is a smaller pool of potential jurors.

“That’s a situation where you might say, I’m not sure if we can empanel a jury in that community, because there are a lot of very hard views,” says Currie.

As for Densmore, she says following the Sandeson trial made her feel deeply connected to the case and to the victim. She even met Samson’s family, and walked away with a deep sense of empathy.

“It’s taking it away from the keyboard and the words and bringing such a human quality to it,” she says.

“Once this case ends, it doesn’t end for them.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Bruce Frisko