It is strange to think of something like Facebook have a role to play in law enforcement. For most of us, Facebook is something fun and a way to connect with friends and family that we enjoy on a daily basis. But in a particular drunk driving case that came to trial in Buffalo, New York, Facebook influenced a judge to make the sentence for a crime much harsher. In that way, Facebook became a crime detective.
There is a tragic side to this story. On the surface, it is another case of a young woman making a big mistake, which resulted in a drunk driving accident. Annie Sullivan was arrested after crashing her car because she was drunk while driving in the little town of North Tonawanda, which is situated, between Buffalo New York and Niagara Falls. The tragic side of the story is that her boyfriend Alex Rozicki was killed in the accident.
Nonetheless, Ms. Sullivan pleaded guilty to drunk driving and seemed to be on her way to a being charged with negligent homicide and a misdemeanour charge of drunk driving. But clearly, this tragic accident, the loss of life and property and the run in with the law didn’t slow down Ms. Sullivan one little bit.
About a month after the accident that took the life of her boyfriend, Annie went to Florida and apparently, her drinking did not slow down just because she had been in a DUI accident that ended tragically. She posted pictures of herself from that trip in a Facebook folder called "Drunk in Florida".
Now you would not think someone who was facing serious legal problems due to drinking would advertise that they had just kept on drinking. When the case came to court, the judge threw the book at her. And the one of the primary reasons the judge came down so hard on Annie was that post on her Facebook page. But because Annie Sullivan thought she could celebrate on Facebook the drinking that killed her boyfriend, the judge took away her youthful offender status and she got jail time followed by probation where she is prohibited from drinking for five years.
Two lessons for all of us came out of this. First of all, people can see your Facebook page. Good grief! Who doesn’t know that? Apparently, Annie Sullivan didn’t know that. Now she does. The second lesson is obvious. If you must drink, don’t drive and it you must drive, don’t drink. That also seems painfully obvious. But if Annie Sullivan had understood that, Alex Rozicki would be alive today.