Social media postings can be submitted as trial evidence as long as the party introducing the evidence can demonstrate to the judge that a jury could reasonably conclude the postings are authentic, the Delaware Supreme Court has ruled. The court’s opinion affirmed a Superior Court ruling allowing the introduction of a defendant’s Facebook postings detailing a fight that led to an assault conviction.
Ruling in a case of first impression, the Supreme Court held Delaware should adopt the less-stringent Texas approach to authenticating social media evidence instead of the stricter Maryland approach advocated by the defense counsel. Under the Texas approach, an attorney can introduce social media postings as evidence if he or she can prove to the judge that a jury would reasonably find the proffered evidence is valid. The Maryland rule requires social media to be authenticated only through the testimony of the creator, the hard drive of the creator’s computer, or information obtained directly from the social networking site. If an attorney cannot verify the social media message with those exact requirements, it will not be admitted as evidence.
