Emails - use as evidence, 3

On Mar 3, 7:34 am, s...@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote:

> How can he possibly know it came from his ex-wife?  He can testify
> that he received it, but he can't prove that she sent it.

Yes he can.   Legal "proof" does not mean scientific "proof".   Testimony is proof.  If I testify that the moon is made of green cheese, that is legally sufficient for the jury to deliberate and reach a verdict that the moon IS in fact a moldy dairy product, even though we all (think) we know better.  How do you think all those juries in Salem in the 1600s found all those witches?

As I've noted in other posts, authentication of a document is just one of the bare-minimum requriements for it to be accepted into evidence, NOT conclusive proof that it IS what it claims to be.  That remains for the jury to decide, and if OP's proof (i.e. his testimony regarding provenance of the document) is not believed,  the jury is free to reject that document as well as to consider the effect of OP's mischaracterization of that document on the credibility of the REST of OP's testimony.

>  Only she can testify to that,

Um, no.   The whole point of the hearsay exdception that allows OP to introduce a document that he alleges is an admission by his party opponent, though his own testimony rather than hers, is that she IS likely to deny having made it, if that were the only legal way to get it into evidence.  That's why an out-of-court admission by the party opponent is admissible into evidence independent of that party's testimony, as long as _someone_ (such as OP) can testify that it was an admission made at some previous time, by OP's ex.

> or a _lot_ of circumstantial evidence (it came
> from her account while she was dialed in from her apartment with a
> security camera in the hall to prove nobody else was present, and her
> computer was certified not to have any malware on it that could have
> sent the message, and . . .) can prove it.

This is confusing scientific proof with legal proof.   A sworn word of testimony carries just as much legal weight, if not more, than all the scientific proof in the world, at least in the eyes of the law.

> If all he knows is that it came from your-ex-w...@gmail.com, that
> might not even be her account (e.g. somebody else registered an
> account with my name there to annoy me.  Somebody who received email
> from seth.breidb...@gmail.com had better not testify that I sent it.)

This also is meat for cross-exam and goes to the ultimate weight, not the initial admissibility, of the disputed document.

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