Guides
Plain-English answers on collecting text messages, WhatsApp and social media as evidence, and the rules that decide whether a court accepts them.
Guides
Plain-English answers to the questions clients and opposing counsel actually ask.
How to Print Text Messages for Court
Four ways to get a conversation onto paper, and what each one leaves out.
Are Text Messages Admissible in Court?
The three hurdles, and what federal, California, Texas, Florida and New York courts require.
Are Text Messages Hearsay?
Only when offered for their truth. The rule, the exceptions, and why authentication is separate.
WhatsApp Messages as Evidence
End-to-end encryption means the phone is the only complete copy. How to collect and authenticate it.
California Evidence Code
Each section quoted in full, then what it means for a text-message exhibit.
California Evidence Code for Text Message Evidence
Start here: which section answers the question you are stuck on.
§ 1400–1401 — Authentication
A writing must be authenticated before it is received. What that takes for a text thread.
§ 250 — "Writing" includes text messages
Why every text, voice note and photo attachment is a writing under the Evidence Code.
§§ 210, 350, 352 — Relevance
A low bar to clear, and the discretion a court keeps to exclude a message anyway.
§ 1200 — The hearsay rule
When a text is hearsay, when it is not, and why machine-generated data never is.
§ 1220 — Admission of a party
The exception that carries most text-message evidence, and what it does not cover.
§§ 1521, 1523 — Secondary evidence
You can prove a message with a copy — unless the copy is disputed or unfair.
§§ 1552–1553 — Printouts presumed accurate
A printout of phone data starts out presumed accurate. What rebuts that presumption.