How an on-line writing course may put a woman in jail for murder

If you've ever heard the saying "anything you say can be used against you in a court of law" this situation is a vivid reminder of that fact.

If you not already familiar with the murder of Dan Markel you can Google his name to get the salacious details. The on-line course angle is that after he was murdered his ex-wife took an on-line writing course. As part of that course the class did a regular pod-cast.

Well, two years later the police now think that either she or someone in her family hired the hitman. So now everyone is dissecting her words to see if she is the killer.

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To me, this is intensely chilling. We live in a new era folks and while it has always been true that anything you say can be used against you in the court of law usually that hasn't included the classroom because classrooms were not recorded. Today your words can live forever and that includes anything you might say in an on-line course. It's not sacred. It's not special. It probably going to last forever in the vaults of the university. The media or even a good lawyer can twist it and take it out of context to make you look bad years down the road.

I now think it is smart before you take any course to ask how long student submissions are kept for and whether they can be permanently destroyed after the grades have been handed out. Otherwise, you might find your personal essays dissected in the media looking for evidence of your guilt.