La Cava & Jacobson, P.A.

Florida Law Weekly – May 11, 2018

Lamb v. State – (4th DCA)

In this case, the Lamb Court addressed whether a Facebook live video was admissible in the criminal context as evidence of guilt.  The Court went through a detailed analysis with respect to how the video was obtained by the police, as well as presented at trial.  Specifically, the State introduced the testimony of a police digital forensic examiner to authenticate the video.  As part of this process, the witness authenticated the video by its distinctive characteristics.

The Lamb Court held that the Trial Court properly authenticated and allowed the video to be presented to the jury.  The Lamb Court recognized that authentication is a very low threshold which was met by the witness visiting the Facebook page and downloading the live video.