Court Opinion

ID: 9676117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:15:28.340838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:44.182743
License: Public Domain

COHEN, Justice,
concurring.
I agree that the fax was admissible as a duplicate, but conclude that it was also admissible as an “original” certified copy under rules 1001 and 1002.
As the State notes in its motion for rehearing, a document that is a “copy” in the ' colloquial sense of the word may actually *940qualify as an “original” document legally. An “original” of a writing is defined as the writing itself or “any counterpart intended to have the same effect by a person executing or issuing it.” Tex.R.CRIM.Evid. 1001(3) (emphasis added). A “counterpart” is defined as a “duplicate or copy.” Black’s Law DICTIONARY 315 (5th ed. 1979). The fax in question qualifies as a rule 1001 “counterpart.”
The record shows that the Cameron County Clerk sent a counterpart intended to have the same effect as the original writing. The Clerk was sending via fax a certified copy of a document that he had the authority to authenticate and over which he, as a public official in the Cameron County Clerk’s Office, had sole dominion. The certification on each page had been darkened at the transmitting end to make it more visible to the receiver. The date of the attestation matched the date of the fax transmission. I conclude that the clerk intended for the fax to be received as a certified copy and to have the same effect as the original judgment and sentence.
The same analysis of evidentiary rules was undertaken in State v. Smith, 66 Wash.App. 825, 832 P.2d 1366 (1992), where a fax of a certified driving record was admitted at a criminal trial for driving while license suspended. In response to a challenge to the admissibility of this fax, the court found:
An “original” of a writing or recording is the writing or recording itself or any counterpart intended to have the same effect by a person executing or issuing it. Since the fax of the seal exactly resembles the original seal and since the Department of Licensing intended the fax to be a certified copy of the driving record, it qualifies as an original document. Admission of the fax is authorized by the rules of evidence and is in keeping with the spirit of statutes ... which aim to keep current with modern technology.
Id. 832 P.2d at 1368.
I would hold that the facsimile' transmission of the Cameron County judgment and sentence was an “original” certified copy under rules 1001 and 1002, and was properly admitted by the trial court as self-authenticated pursuant to rule 902(4).
HEDGES, J., joins in this concurrence.