July, 2018: Mark Foster represented a young man charged with first degree murder. The victim, a teenage boy, had exited his home, only to be shot and killed outside. There were no eyewitnesses who could identify the shooter. Fingerprints, DNA, and other scientific evidence did not point to Foster’s client. There was a single witness who claimed (falsely) that Foster’s client and his codefendant had sought refuge in her residence immediately after the shooting, but her story was contradicted by other facts. Otherwise, the case rested primarily on State evidence showing that Foster’s client had Facebook Messaged the victim shortly before the shooting, informing him that he was out front. However, when Foster carefully reviewed the Facebook data provided by the State in discovery, he determined that various other people had access to, and had actually used, his client’s Facebook identity while he was in jail and unable to access Facebook. This information supported his client’s claim of innocence. Foster disclosed his analysis of this evidence to the State. Shortly thereafter, the State dismissed the case against Foster’s client, who was released from jail after 19 months of pretrial incarceration for a crime he did not commit.
