On Tue, Jan 09, 2001 at 04:55:41PM -0800, Greg Broiles wrote:
... messages allegedly from Jim Bell are likely to be admitted into evidence - Jim and/or his attorney will have an opportunity to argue that they should not be considered reliable evidence, or that if reliable they do not constitute criminal acts or elements of crime(s) charged. The mere possibility that evidence might be fabricated or altered will not keep it out of court, but only provide the basis for an argument that it should not be trusted. The jury or judge is free to accept or ignore that argument as their common sense or politics dictate.
I'm not a lawyer, but my guess is that, unless there is a very compelling argument from expert witness which "proves" to the judge or jury that the emails in a particular case are forged, emails would be accepted in pretty much any (US) court. I beleive that's how written evidence is treated now, even though handwriting and signatures can be forged. If a handwriting expert is brought in and "proves" that there's a forgery, the evidence is thrown out or the judge or jury disregard it as appropriate. In this regard, security experts will be the handwriting experts of the future. (Greg, have there been any cases where email evidence has been shown in a court to be forged? Has this even been attempted, other than Bell's case?) -- Eric Murray Consulting Security Architect SecureDesign LLC http://www.securedesignllc.com PGP keyid:E03F65E5