The investigator testified that he knew it was the girlfriend’s page because of her birthdate, the photograph of her with defendant, the reference to defendant and the use of his nickname. Instead, the state sought to authenticate the printouts, as belonging to the girlfriend, through the testimony of the lead investigator in the case. When the girlfriend took the stand, she was not questioned about the pages allegedly printed from her MySpace profile, i.e., she was not the authenticating witness. During the trial, the State sought to introduce defendant’s girlfriend’s alleged MySpace profile to demonstrate that the girlfriend threatened a State witness prior to trial.
This rule is materially similar to FRE 901.
Fre lay witness trial#
2011), the defendant in a homicide case alleged on appeal that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting printouts from his girlfriend’s MySpace profile without proper authentication under Md.
Accordingly, the witness may testify that (1) he or she created the proffered webpage (2) he or she authored the content in question and (3) the captured webpage accurately reflects his or her webpage on the date of capture. As the person who owns, maintains and controls the webpage, the witness has personal knowledge of its content. For example, the witness in such cases may testify that he or she created the social media profile or tweeted a message from his or her Twitter account. Witness as the Author/Owner/SponsorĬase law suggests that courts are more likely to find that the witness has personal knowledge sufficient to authenticate social media evidence under Rule 901(b)(1) when the authenticating witness is the author, owner or sponsor of the webpage. Under Rule 901(b)(1), a witness with knowledge of the webpage content can provide testimony “that an item is what it is claimed to be.” The authenticating witness is usually (1) the author, owner and/or sponsor of the social media page or (2) the individual who captured the social media page on a particular date and time. Establishing the page’s authorship in such cases can be an obstacle. In particular, we will examine the issues that arise when the testifying witness presents printouts of a third party’s social media page to show that the party owns the profile and authored the content. In Part II of this series, we will discuss the challenges of authenticating social media evidence under Rule 901(b)(1). Several of the enumerated methods are particularly relevant to social media evidence and other webpage evidence such as blogs and corporate websites. FRE 901(a) requires that each item of evidence be authenticated by producing “evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims.” Rule 901(b) provides a list of suggested ways to authenticate evidence. As mentioned in Part I of this series, Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 901 deals with authentication.
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