Tag:Admissibility

Key Insight: Having previously established a standard for the authentication of computer generated evidence in State v. Swinton, 268 Conn. 781,847 A.2d 921 (2004), court highlighted distinction between ?technologies that may be characterized as merely presenting evidence and those that are more accurately described as creating evidence? and held that unmodified surveillance footage did not constitute computer generated evidence for purposes of Swinton; testimony of camera operator that the footage presented to the court was the same footage he observed when the images were originally captured was sufficient to authenticate the unmodified video; court?s admission of modified video footage was harmless error

Nature of Case: Sale of narcotics

Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance footage

Key Insight: Trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting reproductions of images found on appellant?s computer at trial where the Commonwealth presented testimony from the forensic scientist and investigator responsible for making the reproductions explaining the process of reproducing the images and confirming that the reproductions accurately represented the images on defendant?s hard drive, and where defendant admitted membership in relevant websites and storing child pornography on his computer; in Virginia, the best evidence rule is limited to writings and was not applicable in this case

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Reproductions of images on defendant’s hard drive

Key Insight: Appellate court held audio tapes were properly authenticated and admitted into evidence and that trial court did not abuse its discretion upon finding that ?the State presented ample evidence to support the conclusion that the two recordings accurately depicted the two conversations they purported to reproduce? including testimony from victim?s mother who actually taped the conversations and the State Trooper who provided the equipment and instructions; court declined to adopt nine part traditional test for authentication and noted the ?modern approach,? i.e., ?[whether[ the proponent [of the evidence has] presented sufficient evidence to support a rational finding [that] the tape recording is authentic?

Nature of Case: Second degree sexual abuse of a minor

Electronic Data Involved: Audio tapes

Key Insight: Where, based on chain of custody testimony, the trial court admitted a videotape discovered by defendant?s roommate and given to the police, but where there was no testimony concerning the making of the videotape or where it was kept or who had access to it during the nearly three year period from the time of its making to its discovery, and where the appellate court acknowledged that ?because films are so easily altered, there is a very real danger that deceptive tapes, inadequately authenticated, could contaminate the trial process,? appellate court found admission of the tape was in error and that the error was not harmless and ordered a new trial

Nature of Case: Sex abuse

Electronic Data Involved: Videotape

Key Insight: Emails were properly authenticated by defendant?s acknowledgment that he sent the emails at issue during a recorded interview with detectives, by the victim?s testimony that she was familiar with defendant?s email address and signature and by defendant?s own offering of emails between himself and the victim which contained identical email addresses to those emails challenged on appeal

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Key Insight: Where plaintiff offered printouts of defamatory statements from website for the limited purpose of proving the statements appeared on the worldwide web on the days that plaintiff personally saw the statements and printed them from the computer, testimony of plaintiff of his personal knowledge of the content was sufficient to authenticate the documents

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Printout of website

Key Insight: Vice President?s testimony that electronic security log was kept in regular course of business and that data was entered into the log contemporaneously with the events themselves was sufficient to establish a foundation for the admission of the log as a business record where the exception does not require that the foundation be laid by the custodian of records, but only that ?the record offered to prove a transaction be made in the regular course of business and that it is the regular course of business to make the record at the time of the act or transaction?; a witness?s lack of personal knowledge regarding how the records were created ?merely affects the weight given to the evidence?

Nature of Case: Criminal/theft

Electronic Data Involved: Security log indicating when warehouse was locked and unlocked, and the PIN used to access the facility

Key Insight: Court found no abuse of discretion for admitting table summarizing defendant?s sales activities for the relevant time period where the corporate investigator of defendant?s suspected theft prior to his prosecution testified that the report was generated by a particular software in the ordinary course of business and where there was the ?logical inference? based on certain facts that the report was prepared ?at or near? the time of the events reported therein as is required by California Evid. Code section 1271 to authenticate a document as a business record

Nature of Case: Grand theft from employer

Electronic Data Involved: Report of defendant’s sales activities

Key Insight: Stating that ?authenticity is established by proof that the offered evidence is genuine and that there has been no tampering with it,? and that ?the foundation necessary to establish these elements may differ according to the evidence,? court found computer disk containing instant messages was properly authenticated and admitted into evidence where ?both victims testified they had engaged in instant messaging with defendant,? where an investigator testified that he had retrieved the messages from defendant?s computer, where MySpace ?explained the messages?had been exchanged by users of the accounts created by the defendant and the victims,? and where his wife recalled seeing such conversations on defendant?s computer

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Disk containing instant messages