In what could be a landmark criminal case regarding the admissibility of electronic communications, the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal over whether “unauthenticated” text messages may be admitted as evidence during trial.
The high court granted allocatur Tuesday in Commonwealth v. Koch , following the state Superior Court’s unanimous holding in September that there was no evidence showing a Pennsylvania woman wrote the drug-related text messages police found on her cellphone. Granting a new trial in September to Amy N. Koch, who was convicted at trial on drug charges, a unanimous three-judge panel found the texts to be inadmissible hearsay.
