Establishing That Text Messages Are Admissible
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Sending text messages or short electronic messages from one cellular phone to another is a very popular form of communication. “Text messaging users send or receive an average of 41.5 messages on a typical day,” concluded the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. This number is even greater for cellular phone owners between the ages of 18 and 24. They “exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day.”
Given the volume of text messages, it is important that attorneys consider how such evidence can be authenticated and admitted at trial. Two cases demonstrate that text messages can be authenticated on the basis of their “distinctive characteristics,” pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(4).
The Evidentiary Standard
Evidence must be authenticated—or shown that it is what it is claimed to be—before it is admitted. Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(4) explains that one of the ways in which a piece of evidence can be authenticated is based upon its “distinctive characteristics” or “the appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other characteristics of the item, taken together with all the circumstances.”
Read original articleTags: Pew Research Center?s�Internet & American Life Project, Text Messages
