United States v. Browne
United States v. Browne, 834 F.3d 403 (2016). Decided in 3d Cir..
- COURT
- 3d Cir.
- DECIDED
- 2016
- CITATION
- 834 F.3d 403
- OUTCOME
- Admitted
- STANDARD
- Other (Rule 901, 403, or state rule)
- CITED BY
- 66 later opinions (CourtListener)
Facebook chat logs are not records of a regularly conducted activity that can be self-authenticated under Rule 902(11) by a certificate from the platform's records custodian. The conviction was nonetheless affirmed, because the trial record contained sufficient extrinsic evidence to link the defendant to the chats and satisfy a conventional Rule 901 analysis.
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READ THE OPINIONUnited States v. Browne, 834 F.3d 403↗COURTLISTENER · FREE LAW PROJECT · OPENS IN THE SAME TAB
The court’s reasoning
The court described the proper authentication of social media records as an issue of first impression in the circuit and proceeded in three steps: whether the communications were business records capable of self-authentication, whether extrinsic evidence sufficed under Rule 901, and whether the logs were nonetheless inadmissible hearsay. Treating the platform's certificate as authenticating the contents of the chats would confuse authentication with relevance and misconceive the purpose of the business-records exception. Rule 901(b) supplies the alternative routes, including 901(b)(4) distinctive characteristics and 901(b)(9) evidence describing a process or system that produces an accurate result.
From the opinion
“any argument to the contrary misconceives the relationship between authentication and relevance, as well as the purpose of the business records exception to the hearsay rule.”
Grounds argued
This ruling turned on one of the eight arguments that recur across the docket. Each is defined the same way on every entry, so the same ground can be followed across rulings that reached opposite results.
- Authentication
- Whether the proponent can show the electronic record is what it is claimed to be, under Rule 901 or a state analogue. Rule 901(b)(9) — describing a process or system and showing it produces an accurate result — is where a forensic examiner's foundation testimony usually lands.
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Rulings on the same grounds
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ON AUTHENTICATION
- Lorraine v. Markel American Ins. Co. 241 F.R.D. 534 (2007) EXCLUDED
- Commonwealth v. Caruso 476 Mass. 275, 67 N.E.3d 1203 (2017) ADMITTED IN PART
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