eDiscovery Case Law: Inadmissibility of Text Messages Being Appealed

http://ow.ly/aYfMX

An article by Doug Austin posted on the eDiscovery Daily Blog.

This article examines an appeal filed in the case Commonwealth v. Koch, No. 1669-MDA-2010, 2011 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2716 (Sept. 16, 2011), in which a State court in Pennsylvania held that text messages were not admissible in the case, since the proper foundation was not offered to substantiate the authenticity of the evidence.

The article discusses a current appeal of the reference case, and states, "First, the justices will examine whether the text messages “were not offered for their truth” and were therefore admissible. The state questioned whether the Superior Court, in reversing a Cumberland County judge’s decision to admit the texts, had ruled against its own previous holding in another case and thusly created “uncertainty in the law.”
The high court is also tasked with reviewing the case in terms of Pa.R.E. 901, on “Requirement of Authentication or Identification.” According to the Tuesday allocatur grant, prosecutors asked the court to examine whether the Superior Court panel “misapprehended” Rule 901, again going against its own jurisprudence and again creating “uncertainty.”"