Opinion ID: 2335149
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Authentication and identification

Text: Rodriguez first complains that the State did not sufficiently authenticate the text messages. In particular, he argues that the State did not establish that he sent the messages and therefore they were not admissible against him. Only relevant evidence is admissible. NRS 48.025(2). NRS 48.015 defines relevant evidence as evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. Authentication `represent[s] a special aspect of relevancy,' ... in that evidence cannot have a tendency to make the existence of a disputed fact more or less likely if the evidence is not that which its proponent claims. U.S. v. Branch, 970 F.2d 1368, 1370 (4th Cir.1992) (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting Fed.R.Evid. 901(a) advisory committee's note). The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence or other showing sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims. NRS 52.015(1). [4] Because the authentication inquiry is whether the matter in question is what its proponent claims, the proponent of the evidence can control what will be required to satisfy the authentication requirement by deciding what he offers it to prove. 31 Charles Alan Wright & Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure § 7104, at 31 (1st ed. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). The question then is what is necessary to authenticate a text message. Although this presents a question of first impression for this court, other courts have addressed the authentication of text messages, and we turn to their decisions for guidance. For example, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania considered the authentication of text messages where a detective testified to how he transcribed the text messages and that the transcription was an accurate reproduction of the text messages on the defendant's phone, but the prosecution conceded that the defendant did not author all of the text messages on her phone. Commonwealth v. Koch, 39 A.3d 996, ___ (Pa.Super.Ct.2011). The court observed that, as with nonelectronic documents generally, the identity of the sender is critical to authenticating text messages, see id. at ___ - ___, and that the difficulty that frequently arises in ... text message cases is establishing authorship, id. at ___. The court reasoned that a person cannot be identified as the author of a text message based solely on evidence that the message was sent from a cellular phone bearing the telephone number assigned to that person because cellular telephones are not always exclusively used by the person to whom the phone number is assigned. Id. at ___. Thus, some additional evidence, which tends to corroborate the identity of the sender, is required. Id. at . Circumstantial evidence corroborating the sender's identity may include the context or content of the messages themselves, Id. at ___ - ___, such as where the messages contain[ ] factual information or references unique to the parties involved, Id. at ___. Other jurisdictions similarly have focused on the sender's identity and looked to the context and content of the text messages for sufficient circumstantial evidence identifying the sender. See, e.g., Dickens v. State, 175 Md.App. 231, 927 A.2d 32, 36-37 (2007) (identifying details in text messages that could have been known by only a small number of persons, including defendant, defendant's conduct after the messages were sent, and nickname used in one message as circumstantial evidence sufficient to link defendant to the messages); State v. Taylor, 178 N.C.App. 395, 632 S.E.2d 218, 230-31 (2006) (pointing to information in the message and that sender identified himself twice using the victim's first name as sufficient circumstantial evidence that the victim sent the messages). As the reasoning of these jurisdictions illustrates, establishing the identity of the author of a text message through the use of corroborating evidence is critical to satisfying the authentication requirement for admissibility. We thus conclude that, when there has been an objection to admissibility of a text message, see NRS 47.040(l)(a), the proponent of the evidence must explain the purpose for which the text message is being offered and provide sufficient direct or circumstantial corroborating evidence of authorship in order to authenticate the text message as a condition precedent to its admission, see NRS 52.015(1); see also NRS 47.060; NRS 47.070. [5] Here, the State offered the text messages to prove that Rodriguez was one of the men who assaulted the victim. As such, the messages were only relevant to the extent that the State could authenticate them as being authored by Rodriguez. The State established that the victim's cell phone was stolen during the attack. The victim's boyfriend testified that he received the 12 text messages on his cell phone from the telephone number assigned to the victim's cell phone, and the State showed that the victim's boyfriend began receiving those messages shortly after the assault. The State also presented evidence indicating that Rodriguez and Sanders were in possession of the victim's cell phone prior to their arrests. When the victim's phone was recovered by the police, it contained the 12 text messages, as well as photographs of Rodriguez that were taken after the phone was stolen. Although the State provided sufficient evidence that the text messages offered into evidence were sent from the victim's cell phone to her boyfriend's cell phone during a time when Rodriguez and Sanders had access to the victim's cell phone, the State only provided sufficient evidence to show that Rodriguez participated in authoring 2 of the 12 proffered text messagesthe text message sent at 1:29 a.m. stating, Willy boy, you better [%0 0] and the text message send at 1:30 a.m. stating, Willy, do you love me. Those two text messages were sent while Rodriguez and Sanders were on a bus together following the assault. The bus's surveillance video demonstrates that, with Rodriguez seated next to him and watching, Sanders held and operated the victim's cell phone. While it does not appear that Rodriguez typed the two messages, he had firsthand knowledge of the messages and appeared to be participating in composing the messages. Based on this, we conclude that the State provided sufficient direct and circumstantial evidence that tends to corroborate that the two text messages sent at 1:29 a.m. and at 1:30 a.m. were what the State claimed them to bemessages sent or endorsed by Rodriguez that connect him to the assault. However, the record is devoid of any evidence that Rodriguez authored or participated in authoring the ten text messages that were sent after he and Sanders exited the bus around 1:36 a.m. In fact, the evidence suggests that it was Sanders, not Rodriguez, who had possession of the cell phone before the were arrested. Because those ten text messages were not sufficiently authenticated, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in admitting them. Notwithstanding the district court's improper admission of the ten remaining text messages against Rodriguez, we conclude that the error was harmless. See Tavares v. State, 117 Nev. 725, 732, 30 P.3d 1128, 1132 (2001) (The test ... is whether the error `had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict.' (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946))). There was other overwhelming evidence to support the jury's verdict: the victim's testimony that the men who assaulted and robbed her took her debit card and her cell phone; the ATM surveillance videos depicting Rodriguez and Sanders using the victim's debit card at three separate locations, all in close proximity to the victim's apartment shortly after she was attacked; the bus surveillance video showing Rodriguez and Sanders using the stolen cell phone; and pictures of Rodriguez on the victim's phone taken after it was stolen from her apartment.