In a criminal trial, how may an electronic document be examined as evidence, and does the method depend on what the document contains?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In a practice file we read the electronic document itself to see whether it holds text, symbols, drawings or photographs, or audio or video, the copy of the ruling or record showing it was put before the criminal court, and any note on how it was displayed or played to the court.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the provision's categories at face value: in a criminal trial, examination of evidence of an electronic document may be done in the way its contents require, by viewing the document on a monitor or screen where it holds characters, other symbols, drawings, photographs and the like, and by listening to its sound or playing back its image where it holds audio or video information, even though the Criminal Procedure Act would otherwise govern the method of examining evidence.
Another reading stresses that the provision changes only the manner of examination and reaches only electronic documents examined in a criminal trial, so it does not say how such a document is authenticated, when it must be examined rather than described, or what happens where a single electronic document holds both text and audio or video.
Your judgment
Where one electronic document holds both text and sound, what in the file shows which of the two methods the court used and whether that sufficed?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to add a method or a category of content, or if a court decision explains how the two methods are combined where one electronic document holds both kinds of content.