Unauthenticated text messages may not be admitted as evidence in trial, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled, adding to the state's body of case law regarding the evidentiary boundaries of electronic communications.
In granting a new trial to defendant Amy N. Koch, a unanimous three-judge panel found there was no evidence showing Koch wrote the drug-related text messages police found on her phone. The court also decided the texts constituted inadmissible hearsay.
One former prosecutor predicted the decision would be "fertile" ground for future arguments over the admissability of electronic communications.
"Glaringly absent" in the case of first impression was evidence -- be it testimony or clues from the texts identifying Koch as the author -- that Koch wrote the messages, the panel found. Koch admitted to owning the phone, which police seized during a 2009 drug search of her home, but successfully argued the state lacked evidence tying her to the texts. A detective admitted that some of the messages found on the cell phone referred to Koch in the third person and "were clearly not written by her," according a 20-page opinion filed this month.
But the district attorney of Cumberland County, Pa., said the texts should have been viewed as a factor in the state's "totality of circumstances" argument and likened the messages to an "owe sheet" police look for in drug busts.
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Source: law.com
By: Ben Present
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