Opinion ID: 1782622
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the trial court erred in refusing to allow the admission of a letter purportedly written by e.k. recanting her charges against todd.

Text: ¶ 26. Mississippi Rule of Evidence 901(a) states that [t]he requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims. M.R.E. 901(a). Todd's interpretation of this rule, apparently, is that if a party can produce any evidence that a document is what it purports to be, then the trial court must consider it authenticated. We decline to adopt such an expansive view. ¶ 27. At a hearing on post-trial motions, Todd offered the following evidence in support of his claim that the letter purportedly written by E.K., recanting her charges against Todd, was authentic: (1) testimony by Jimmy Hester that he recognized E.K.'s handwriting from having seen it on five letters to him, written two years earlier, (2) testimony by handwriting analyst Lillian Hutchinson that E.K. wrote the letter, and (3) Todd's efforts to impeach prosecution witnesses who denied the letter's authenticity. [4] Balanced against this evidence are the following factual findings upon which the trial court relied in ruling against authentication: (1) E.K. denied having written the letter, (2) Tim Hester admitted to having forged the letter, (3) the person who provided the letter to Todd's counsel indicated that she received the letter from Tim rather than E.K., and (4) an analysis by an examiner with the Mississippi Crime Lab indicating that authorship of the letter could not be conclusively determined. The trial court also found that Lillian Hutchison and Jimmy Hester were not credible witnesses. ¶ 28. A trial court's application of Rule 901 is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Ragin v. State, 724 So.2d 901, 903 (Miss.1998). A trial court's ruling on the admissibility of testimony by an expert witness is also reviewed for abuse of discretion. Hall v. State, 611 So.2d 915, 919 (Miss.1992). On the record before us, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in disregarding the testimony of Lillian Hutchison, particularly in light of the trial court's stated concerns about her qualifications and her own admission that she only compared the letter to photocopies of E.K.'s handwriting rather than originals. Nor did the trial court abuse its discretion in disregarding the testimony of Jimmy Hester, who admitted that he had not seen E.K.'s handwriting in two years. Consequently, we have no basis for finding an abuse of discretion regarding the authentication of the letter itself, since the only other evidence supporting its authenticity consisted of vigorous cross-examination of witnesses who otherwise flatly denied the letter's authenticity. This assignment of error is without merit.