Court of Appeals Upholds Admissibility of Social Media Evidence Based on Circumstantial Evidence of Authenticity

The court of appeals recently decided State v. Ford, a case about the authentication of social media evidence. This is the first North Carolina appellate case to give careful consideration to the issue, and the opinion sets a relatively low bar for authentication. Because this type of evidence is increasingly prevalent, the case is an important one. Background. The case began when a dog attacked and killed an elderly man. Suspicion fell on the defendant and his pit bull, DMX, because they lived next door to the scene of the attack and the dog had a history of aggression against other dogs and against people. After DNA evidence linked the dog to the killing, the defendant was charged with, and convicted of, involuntary manslaughter based on his negligence in allowing his dog to run free. The social media evidence. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial judge erred in admitting two screenshots from MySpace, showing videos of the defendant’s dog with titles and captions including “DMX THA KILLA PIT” and “After a Short Fight, he killed that mut.” The defendant asserted that the State had failed to show that he had posted the videos and had written the titles and captions, and therefore had failed adequately to authenticate the evidence. The principal evidence of authentication was: The name on the account was Flexugod/7, and the defendant’s nickname was Flex. The account contained multiple pictures of the defendant. The account contained multiple pictures and videos of DMX. The account may have [...]