California courts have been trhying to keep up with the changing dynamics of society including social media in the courtroom and its admissibility. In the Digital Age where technology continues to advance rapidly sharing photos, videos etc, some people go as far as to revealing the most intimate parts of there lives including, believe it or not there possible involvement in criminal activity.
THE ADMISISBILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA EVIDENCE
Social Media evidence faces all of the same hurdles as so called more traditional evidence. The evidence must be relavent to some issue in the case. The evidence must be able to be authenticated which means that it must be able to be shown to be what is purports to be. And it must be able to get past any Hearsay objections. And the evidence cannot be unfairly prejudicial.
You or your Attorney should probably seek a 402 hearing which is a hearing to determine the admissibility of evidence
The key question is who authored the social media post. This must be shown before any social media evidence may be admitted. Once this is established this may simultaneouosly establish an exception to the hearsay rule.
And the person seeking to admit the post must be able to prove that the social media post is accurate.
The person offering the evidence will often seek to introduce the evidence that for example the person was in the place where the social media post was made it is him in the picutre and he did not try to have the account blocked after being hacked for example. This would be circumstantial evidence. Or the proponent can just ask the person on the stand if the account is there account. Another form of circumstantial evidence is that someone saw him put the post up and was with him when it was made.
If you have any further questions give us a call 559 441-1418.
