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Tallo - Research Video

Photo and video evidence must meet standards of relevance and authenticity to be admissible in court. Evidence is relevant if it supports or undermines issues in the legal case. To authenticate evidence, it must accurately represent the conditions related to the legal claim, such as depicting the scene of an accident. While photographers can authenticate photos, others competent to verify accuracy can also do so. Local rules also allow video evidence to be authenticated by those who made the recording or others who can verify its accuracy. Authentication establishes the evidential weight rather than determining admissibility.

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Jeoffrey Agnes Sedanza Pusay
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84 views2 pages

Tallo - Research Video

Photo and video evidence must meet standards of relevance and authenticity to be admissible in court. Evidence is relevant if it supports or undermines issues in the legal case. To authenticate evidence, it must accurately represent the conditions related to the legal claim, such as depicting the scene of an accident. While photographers can authenticate photos, others competent to verify accuracy can also do so. Local rules also allow video evidence to be authenticated by those who made the recording or others who can verify its accuracy. Authentication establishes the evidential weight rather than determining admissibility.

Uploaded by

Jeoffrey Agnes Sedanza Pusay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Photo and video evidence can be extremely effective in legal proceedings.

Potential
evidence is everywhere and readily available with the proliferation of surveillance
cameras and smartphones in everyone’s pockets. With this availability, every legal
claim seems to incorporate photos or video. But is photo and video evidence always
admissible in court? What are the pitfalls to be aware of when using such evidence?

Admissibility

In order for photo and video evidence to be admissible in court it must meet two basic
requirements: relevance and authenticity. In order for evidence to be relevant it must
have probative value. In other words, it must either support or undermine the truth of
any point at issue in the legal proceedings.

In order for evidence to be authenticated, it must accurately represent its subject as


related to the legal claim. For example, a photo or video used as evidence in an
accident case must truthfully represent the conditions of the road at the time and date of
the accident.

Unlike the Rules of Court, the REE contains a provision expressly dealing with video
evidence. The REE provides that “[a]udio, photographic and video evidence of events,
acts or transactions shall be admissible provided it shall be shown, presented or
displayed to the court and shall be identified, explained or authenticated by the person
who made the recording or by some other person competent to testify on the accuracy
thereof.” (Section 1, Rule 11)
The foregoing provision follows the jurisprudential rule that authentication of
photographs is not limited to the photographer who took the picture but that these can
also be identified by another competent witness who can testify as to their exactness
or accuracy (Sison vs. People, 250 SCRA 58 [1995]; Republic vs Court of Appeals,
299 SCRA 199 [1998]). It is what I call the “layman’s approach” to authenticating
video evidence.

If at all, the rule in that jurisdiction is that authentication technology merely increases
the evidential weight of a digital image; in local parlance, it goes into the weight
rather than the admissibility of the evidence.

Sison vs. People, 250 SCRA 58 [1995];


The rule in this jurisdiction is that photographs, when presented in
evidence, must be identified by the photographer as to its production and
testified as to the circumstances under which they were produced. 48 The
value of this kind of evidence lies in its being a correct representation or
reproduction of the original, 49 and its admissibility is determined by its
accuracy in portraying the scene at the time of the crime. 50 The
photographer, however, is not the only witness who can identify the
pictures he has taken. 51 The correctness of the photograph as a faithful
representation of the object portrayed can be proved prima facie, either by
the testimony of the person who made it or by other competent witnesses,
after which the court can admit it subject to impeachment as to its
accuracy. 52 Photographs, therefore, can be identified by the photographer
or by any other competent witness who can testify to its exactness and
accuracy. 53

48 City of Manila v. Cabangis, 10 Phil. 151 [1908]; 4 Martin, Revised Rules on Evidence, 61 [1989].

49 The Chamberlayne Trial Evidence, p. 617 cited in 4 Martin, supra; Tan v. Sun Insurance, 51 Phil.
212 [1927].

50 1 Underhill, A Treatise on the Law on Criminal Evidence, 216-217 [1956].

51 Underhill, supra; VII Francisco, The Revised Rules of Court in the Philippines, part 1, 107 [1973].

52 Francisco, supra.

53 City of Manila v. Cabangis, supra; cf. Vda. de Ramos v. Court of Appeals, 81 SCRA 393 [1978].

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