United States v. Bertram - 259 F. Supp. 3d 638 (E.D. Ky. 2017)

Rule:

Federal Rule of Evidence 901 requires records to be properly authenticated before they are admitted into evidence at trial. To satisfy the requirement of authenticating a certain record, the proponent of the record "must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is." Fed. R. Evid. 901(a).

Facts:

Exhibit 101B includes a series of emails, the first to which Government witness Kris Kaiser was a party. Ms. Kaiser testified that she performed billing services on behalf of the Defendants' laboratory PremierTox, and in this role she had reason to interact with the five Defendants via email correspondence. During its direct examination, the Government showed Ms. Kaiser a number of emails that she either sent to or received from the Defendants in the course of her Liberty Billing duties. And the Government elicited testimony from Ms. Kaiser about her familiarity with the Defendants' email addresses and signature characteristics, particularly those of Brian Walters and Bryan Wood. The section of Exhibit 101B including an email message between Ms. Kaiser and Defendant Bertram was introduced without incident, as Ms. Kaiser was a party to that communication. But the Defendants objected to the Government's attempt to introduce emails between Defendants Bryan Wood and Brian Walters through Ms. Kaiser, because Kaiser was not copied on those emails and presumably had never seen them before. 

Issue:

May emails be authenticated under the Federal Rules of Evidence by someone other than the sender or recipient?

Answer:

Yes.

Conclusion:

The Court held that the key consideration in an authentication analysis is whether the piece evidence is, in fact, what the proponent claims it is. After considering the characteristics of the numerous emails at issue in this case as well as the context and background testimony provided by the authenticating witnesses, the Court had little doubt that the emails are exactly what they purport to be, and this remains true regardless of whether the authenticating witness was a sender or recipient. Finally, the Court found the emails were also properly admitted on substantive grounds.