People v. Beckley

In People v. Beckley (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 509, the trial court admitted a photograph downloaded from the MySpace Web page of one of the defendants. (Beckley, supra, 185 Cal.App.4th at p. 514.) The photograph purportedly depicted the defendant's girlfriend making a gang sign, and was introduced to rebut her testimony that she was not associated with a gang. (Ibid.) The appellate court held that the trial court erred in admitting the photograph, because there was not any "evidence sufficient to sustain a finding that it is the photograph that the prosecution claims it is, namely, an accurate depiction of the girlfriend actually flashing a gang sign." (Id. at p. 515.) The detective could not testify from personal knowledge that the photograph truly portrayed the girlfriend flashing a gang sign, and no expert testified that the picture was not a composite or faked photograph. (Ibid.)