Juror "friends" female defendant on facebook

A 22-year-old male juror pleaded guilty to trying to 'friend' the female defendant in his case, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Instead of accepting his advances, the woman told her lawyer, who told the judge, who pounded the gavel.
It sounds like a case of eyes locking across a crowded courtroom, at least from the point of view of the juror. After the trial — involving a Tarrant County, Texas car wreck — recessed one day, he tried to link up with the defendant on Facebook. When she rebuffed his request, he suggested it was a case of mistaken identity, but that didn't hold water.
According to the article, not only does Texas have jury instructions banning jurors from discussing trials on social media, this juror was given a copy of those instructions.
The juror was dismissed from the case, says the Star-Telegram, and his four counts of contempt of court landed him two days of community service in the bailiff's office.
This isn't the first case of would-be courtroom friendship turning to disaster on Facebook. Earlier this year, in the UK, a juror friended a defendant, who accepted. Both got slapped with contempt-of-court convictions — and up to two years in prison. By comparison, perhaps, the Texas juror got off easy