Lawyer Lionel Explains Why Screenshots Are NOT Evidence in Court: Utah Evidence Rules Breakdown
Lawyer Lionel Nation details how Utah's evidence rules reject screenshots as proof without rigorous authentication, noting that AI now mimics handwriting and clones usernames to fabricate texts and chats. He stresses that accounts do not equal identity due to hacking risks, requiring forensic extraction of IP logs and device identifiers rather than visual appearance. Without linking metadata to specific users, digital artifacts remain inadmissible narratives, forcing courts to demand skepticism toward easily altered files and preventing potential appellate reversals in criminal or civil cases. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
America Rebuilding Mineral Supply Chain00:02:25
I keep hearing people say or suggest that the prosecutors are going to be able to introduce all of these screenshots and Discord messages or DACORD messages or all these messages, these text messages and letters and, hey, I found it.
Just let it into evidence.
People are going to say, hey, that's just terrific.
That's great.
Is it really that terrific?
Is it really that great?
Is it really that easy?
Let me tell you something.
There's a little problem.
There's this thing called authentication, and while it may not necessarily be on the top of everybody's tongue or the tip of everybody's tongue, let this old experienced trial lawyer explain to you why it's so critical and why it may be a little bit of an impediment for the prosecution.
But first, this word from our sponsor.
Last year, we talked about Alaska, a powerhouse of mineral wealth with a long track record of responsible development.
Now it's back in focus with support from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy.
And the reopening of the Ambler Road project under President Trump, momentum is building fast.
Visla Copper, trading as VCUFF in the U.S. and VCU in Canada, has taken a major step forward.
The company now owns 100% of the Palmer Project, a high grade asset believed to hold billions in in ground value.
It was even named by Alaska's governor in a memo to the White House as a priority for domestic critical minerals.
And here is the headline Washington just rolled out over 42%.
Billion dollars in support for critical minerals in early 2026 alone.
We have seen this before.
Similar backing sent other Alaska explorers up over 200%.
Visla trades at a fraction of that value.
Bottom line, America is rebuilding its mineral supply chain and domestic supply is winning.
Big thanks to Visla Copper for making today's video possible.
All right, my friend, let's slow this down just a little bit and walk through it the way a seasoned trial warrior and trial animal would look at this.
Because I'm hearing a lot of people talk about introducing all kinds of stuff in evidence just because, well, just because it's there.
I mean, it's a screenshot.
That's good, right?
Well, maybe not necessarily.
The Real Rules of Digital Evidence00:15:30
Because what you're getting at, you know, what you're maybe perhaps, I hope, suggesting cuts to the very core of modern evidence law.
And evidence is what importers the rules of evidence, which apply pretty much uniformly around the country.
They're based on the federal rules of evidence, and most states have almost identical versions.
So let's think about this.
First, as you probably notice, we are living in a world right now and in a moment where technology has outpaced instinct.
And courts in particular are scrambling to keep up.
Remember, Lionel's Law the law always lags behind technology.
So now we have screenshots and texts and Discord shots and Handwritten notes and even voice, sometimes in video.
Everything right now can be simulated, altered, or flat out fabricated.
That means the old habit of saying, Here it is, and dropping a document on the table is no longer, well, no longer good enough, as you can understand.
Not even close.
Let's start with the foundation, laying the foundation, laying the predicate, as we say.
Under the Utah Rules of Evidence, which is basically, again, a kind of an iteration or a codification of the federal rules.
And vice versa, in essence.
The best evidence rule, this is one of my favorites.
The best evidence rule tells us that if you want to prove the contents of a writing or a recording, you're supposed to produce the original or a reliable duplicate.
Okay?
You got that?
Let me say that again.
This is important.
Before you want to prove the contents of a writing or a recording, you're supposed to produce the original or a reliable duplicate in some cases.
Now, fine, so that sounds straightforward, it sounds terrific, but here's the catch.
In the digital age, what is the original?
Is it the message on the phone, the server copy, the screenshot, the cloud backup?
Already we're in kind of murky water.
Now, layer on authentication.
That's rule 901.
Before anything gets admitted, the proponent of the evidence, the one who's introducing it, has to show that the item is what they claim it is.
That sounds simple until you realize.
What it actually demands in practice.
It means proving not just that a text exists, but that it came from a particular person, from a particular device, at a particular time, without tampering, and that it's the original, so to speak.
And this is where the casual, here's my screenshot crowd, runs into a brick wall.
A screenshot is not an original.
It's not even necessarily a reliable duplicate.
It is a representation.
You hear that?
A representation of what someone claims appeared on a screen at some point in time.
And that's a car fry, a far cry from proof.
Screenshots can be cropped, edited, staged, generated, everything from scratch.
And with today's AI tools, You can fabricate entire conversations that look indistinguishable from reality.
Fonts match, timestamps look authentic, usernames are cloned, avatars are identical.
To the untrained eye, it's airtight.
To a court applying the rules of evidence properly, it's just the beginning of a very long inquiry.
Take a platform like Discord.
On its face, it looks like a simple chat app.
And by the way, there's a debate about whether Discord was even used, but let's just assume.
Seems pretty straightforward, but from an evidentiary standpoint, it is a layered ecosystem.
Here we go, here's that word an ecosystem.
Messages are stored on servers, accounts can be accessed from multiple devices, usernames can be changed, and identities can be masked behind handles that mean absolutely nothing unless tied to a real person.
So if someone walks into court and says, Here are Discord messages from the defendant, the court has to ask a series of uncomfortable but necessary questions.
Critical questions, salient questions.
Number one, who owns the account?
Who had access to it?
From what devices has it accessed?
What are the IP logs?
Has the username changed?
Are there server records confirming the messages?
Was the conversation exported directly or is this just a screenshot?
Without answers to those questions, you don't have authentication at all.
You have a story, a narrative, you have a version.
And here's the phrase that should echo in every courtroom today Account does not equal identity.
Just because a message comes from an account, just because it comes from a phone, bearing someone's name does not mean that person sent it.
Accounts can be hacked, credentials get shared, devices get borrowed, and in some cases, accounts are outright spoofed.
Add AI into the mix, and now you get something really interesting.
You can generate entire messages, histories that never existed.
And that's not science fiction anymore.
That's really off the shelf of capability.
So, what does proper authentication, courtroom authentication, look like in this environment?
Interesting.
It would start first of all with linkage.
You need to tie the account to the person.
That can mean subscriber information, registration data, or testimony from someone who knows the account belongs to that individual.
But that alone isn't enough.
You also need usage evidence, login records, IP addresses, device identifiers.
See, something that shows that the account was being accessed in a way that was consistent with the person's known behavior.
Now, then you move.
To content based authentication.
Courts allow distinctive characteristics.
Does the message reference facts only that person would know?
Does it match their writing style, their slang, their habits?
I mean, this is where things get really interesting because now you're blending hard data with human interference and human inference.
And still, even that may not be enough in high stakes cases.
So that's why you bring in forensic.
Extraction.
Instead of relying on a screenshot, you pull the data directly from the device or the platform.
You generate a report that includes metadata, timestamps, message IDs, and interestingly enough, system logs.
Now you're not just saying this looks real, you're saying this is how the system recorded it.
And that's different and a completely different universe of proof.
Now, pivot to handwriting.
Remember these notes that were left?
Look underneath the keyboard.
Look underneath.
I left you a note.
Let's look at handwriting because the same principles apply, just in a kind of an older form.
A handwritten note feels more tangible, more trustworthy.
People instinctively think you can't fake that.
Well, that's simply not true.
Handwriting can be forged, imitated, or even mechanically reproduced.
So, courts require authentication there as well.
So how do you authenticate a handwritten document?
This goes back forever.
You can have a witness who saw the person write it.
That's the gold standard, of course.
Kind of like they think wills and things.
You can also have someone familiar with the person's handwriting testify that it matches perfectly.
Or you can bring in an expert.
You can bring someone to review it.
This is where the so-called graphologist or others are more accurately reviewed.
Or actually they're called, at current lingo, a forensic document examiner.
And they come into play.
Their role is not mystical, it's technical.
They analyze stroke patterns, pressure, spacing, letter formation, rhythm, slanting.
They compare known samples to the question document.
And they look for consistencies and inconsistencies that the average person would never notice or even think of.
But even here, courts are cautious.
Handwriting analysis, I should say, really is not infallible, it's subject to challenge.
Experts can disagree.
Cross examination can expose uncertainty.
So, again, the system demands more than, well, it looks right, looks like it's handwriting.
I suppose it is.
Now bring everything together because this is the real point that we're looking at right now.
And I want you to grasp.
We are in an era where appearance is cheap.
A text message can look real, appear real.
A Discord chat can look real, appear real.
A screenshot can look real, appear real.
A handwriting example or a handwritten note can look real and appear real.
But the law doesn't operate on appearance.
It operates on foundation, laying the predicate.
And that foundation requires two separate but equally important showings.
Listen very carefully.
First, under the best evidence principles, that what you are presenting accurately reflects the content you claim.
Not a distorted version of it.
Not a selective excerpt.
Not a manipulated image.
And also, sometimes you've got to look at where's the original?
Is this the original?
What's the original of it?
We'll talk about that later.
And the second, under authentication, under a 901 analysis, you have to ensure that the content is actually connected to the person you say it is.
Does it truly and accurately depict what it claims to?
Is it written from that person?
Is there some provenance to it?
Think.
The antiques roadshow, where you have something, you say, is this legitimate?
Was this made in the Revolutionary War time or something?
You need somebody, you need an expert to look at this thing.
See, this you have to understand.
Did it come from their account, their device, their hand, their action?
If you miss either one, the entire thing starts to wobble and it may be inadmissible.
So, what makes this moment so volatile is the rise of AI.
Not theoretical AI, practical, usable, accessible AI.
Tools that can generate conversations and mimic writing styles and And replicate voices, even produce convincing videos.
The barrier to fabrication has collapsed.
You no longer need a sophisticated lab, you don't need anything special.
You need a laptop and a little time.
So, that reality forces courts and lawyers and, frankly, juries right now to become more skeptical.
And the old assumption that nobody would go to the trouble of faking this that's nonsense.
That's gone, especially in a case of this nature.
So, people absolutely will and they can.
So, when somebody says, you know, here's my text message, The correct response is not to accept it at face value.
The correct response is to ask a very simple question.
Where did this come from?
Or how was it obtained?
Or, even more importantly, how can we verify it independently?
What system recorded it?
Who had access to the account?
Because without those answers, you're not dealing with evidence.
You're dealing with a claim dressed up as evidence.
And this is critical.
And in a very serious case like this one, whether it's a criminal procedure or a high stakes civil dispute or whatever it is, anytime, that distinction can decide everything.
And the rules of evidence apply.
And the bottom line is simple even if the mechanics are not, screenshots are easy, authentication is hard.
And in today's very interesting, rough and tumble world of courtroom warfare, Hard is what the law requires.
If the system doesn't insist on that level of rigor, then we are not adjudicating facts anymore.
We're comparing competing narratives and stories built on digital illusions.
And that is not justice.
That's guesswork with consequences.
So, no, it is not enough to say, well, here's the message, here it is.
Not anymore.
Not in this environment.
Not when the tools to fake reality are sitting in everyone's pocket.
And by the way, the law knows this big time.
It is adapting as we speak.
And any case that ignores it is walking straight into a credibility issue and poses a lot of issues on appellate review.
You don't want some appellate court to bounce this back and say, this was incorrectly admitted because of an improper predicate.
Because let me tell you something this is about a credibility crisis that no jury instruction can fix.
So just remember this.
This is not even remotely.
Not difficult to understand.
It's very serious.
The law of evidence applies to everything.
And one more thing.
I know these, by the way, the deep dives are phenomenal.
What we are seeing, what we are hearing, what people are producing is so incredible.
Sam Parker, Project Constitution, Candace Owens, Baron Coleman.
These, I'm telling you, I have never seen anything like this.
The level of research is like nothing we've ever seen before.
And all of them, by the way, are all of this is important.
But remember, what we talk about in terms of YouTube and channels, that may not even see the light of day when it comes to court.
It may not even be looked at because of the fact that authentication and also best evidence and a variety of other issues are important.
Final word any trial lawyer worth his or her salt who knows the rules of evidence can keep everything out.
or let everything in, depending upon what you call it, depending upon why it's used.
Don't get me started on hearsay.
I could explain that for a year.
It's not what you think.
You can't say, here it is.
No, no, no, no.
You have to introduce it.
There has to be a foundation, a predicate that is laid, and the court has to rule on its accuracy, on its dependability, on it saying what it is.
And today, with AI and all kinds of ways of distorting reality, a picture, by the way, as an example, is not worth a thousand words at all.
Clouds can be tampered with.
Pictures can be tampered with.
It's a different, different world.
And by the way, we didn't have this during the OJ days.
This is brand new.
So, my friends, I ask you, I thank you.
Please like this video.
Subscribe to our noble and humble channel.
Please hit that little bell so you're notified of live streams and new videos.
And please, I have for you some questions for you to answer, some insights.
And I ask you, as always, my friend, to comment as you see fit.