I would say this is confirmatiin that posts on a site like this one can definitely be used in court "AS EVIDENCE." This is a good explanation if how it is determined to be authentic to the poster and why/how it becomes evidence:
The Admissibility of Social Media Evidence
The Admissibility of Social Media Evidence | Litigation News | ABA Section of Litigation
If that link does not work, this is the same as above:
iWITNESS: The Admissibility of Social Media Evidence | Section of Litigation
Thank you for posting this, Spellbound. I really enjoyed reading it. I noticed it even talks about how social media evidence was used to help secure a murder conviction in a case out of Michigan:
“
Hearsay Rules
To use the hearsay rules to exclude, or the exceptions to admit, social media, lawyers need only apply the rules and exceptions in the same way they apply them to other evidence. Consider People v. Oyerinde, 2011 Mich. App. LEXIS 2104, at *26–27 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 29, 2011).
In this first-degree murder and carjacking case, the court held that the defendant’s Facebook messages were not hearsay, but rather a party admission, because he sent them to another person.
Just because the evidence was available on social media does not mean the test for a party admission changed. The rule states that ‘[a]
statement is not hearsay if . . . [t]he statement is offered against a party and is the party’s own statement, in either an individual or representative capacity.’ The judge applied the test as it would be applied to any other out-of-court statement and determined that such messages were not hearsay. The same court also admitted Facebook messages sent to the defendant and another individual under the ‘state of mind’ exception.”
The article also discusses a case out of California in which the defendant was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a firearm, and two counts of street terrorism (Pen. Code, § 186.22, subd. (a)), arising from two separate drive-by shootings:
“
Authenticating Evidence
But what about authentication? “[A] piece of paper or electronically stored information,
without any indication of its creator, source, or custodian may not be authenticated under Federal Rule of Evidence 901.” United States v. O’Keefe, 537 F. Supp. 2d 14, 20 (D.D.C. 2008).
[SBM]
In People v. Valdez, 201 Cal. App. 4th 1429, 1434–37 (Cal. App. 4th Dist. 2011) (section on authentication not published), a police expert printed copies of the defendant’s profile on a social media website that contained photographs of and biographical information about the defendant.
The expert went on to explain that although the profile is accessible to the public, only the individual who created the profile, or one who has access to that person’s login ID and password, has the ability to upload or manipulate content on the page. As a result, the court held that a reasonable trier of fact could conclude from the information posted—
including personal photographs, communications, and other details—that the social media profile belonged to the defendant.” (BBM)
An in-depth look at the Valdez case:
Contents of MySpace Page Are Sufficient To Establish Its Authenticity | Law Offices of James V. Sansone
