State v. Billings

Citations

• 217 Conn. App. 1

Syllabus

Convicted of criminal violation of a restraining order, stalking in the second degree and harassment in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant had been in a relationship with A, and, when A ended the relationship, the defendant began posting photographs of her and private details about their affair on social media. A obtained an ex parte restraining order against the defendant, and, a few days after he was served with it, the defendant had a conversation with a third party on his Facebook page relating to the affair. The defendant did not refer to A by name in this conversation, but he referenced A's workplace, details of the affair, his alleged evidence of the same, and his desire to tell A's husband about the affair. A's friend, W, took screen- shots of the conversation and sent them to A. On the sole basis of that Facebook conversation, the state charged the defendant. At trial, the state admitted into evidence the screenshots of the Facebook conversa- tion, along with screenshots of posts and messages relating to A and the affair from various other social media accounts that allegedly belonged to the defendant. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted into evidence screenshots of the social media posts and messages attributed to the defendant because the screenshots were properly authenticated: the screenshots were admitted through W and A, who both testified that they knew the defendant and that they were able to directly link the defendant to the posts and messages in the screenshots on the basis of the content and distinctive characteristics of the posts, messages, and social media accounts, despite that the majority of the posts and mes- sages were not directly received or authored by W or A; moreover, the state was not required to conclusively prove that the defendant wrote and published the posts and messages, and concerns that the social media accounts associated with the defendant were either