Parker v. State

In Parker v. State, Del. Supr., 85 A.3d 682, 684 (2014), the Delaware Supreme Court, in analyzing the potential methods in authenticating social media evidence, adopted the "Texas approach." Authenticating electronic evidence depends upon the facts and circumstances of the particular case. The Texas Court found that this could include "direct testimony from a witness with personal knowledge, comparison with other authenticated evidence, or circumstantial evidence." Furthermore, the Court held that the standard for determining the admissibility of evidence is "whether a jury could reasonably find the proffered evidence authentic." In holding that the State has sufficiently authenticated the defendant's social media posts and pictures, the Texas Court found that the combination of facts, including photos and contextual references to the defendant's life, was circumstantial evidence sufficient to support a finding by a rational jury that the social media page offered into evidence was created by the Defendant. In adopting this approach, the Parker Court concluded that "social media evidence should be subject to the same authentication requirements under the Delaware Rules of Evidence Rule 901(b) as any other evidence." (Parker, 85 A.3d at 687.)