Electronic Discovery and Evidence

Beatty wants text message evidence suppressed

Beatty wants text message evidence suppressed. "The first battle has begun in the war Christine Beatty's lawyers are expected to wage against admissibility of the infamous text messages as evidence in the Jan. 5 criminal trial of Kwame Kilpatrick's former chief of staff.

Motions added this week to the files at Wayne Circuit Court claim Prosecutor Kym Worthy may have illegally obtained copies of 625,000 messages exchanged over a five-year period between Beatty, former Mayor Kilpatrick and others using city-owned text pagers.

The motion demands that the text messages cannot be used as evidence at a trial and the judge should order all of them suppressed. . . . "

Congress Passes New Evidence Rule 502

Congress Passes New Evidence Rule 502. "The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced that: "[o]n September 8, 2008, the House unanimously passed without amendment S. 2450, a bill adding new Evidence Rule 502 to the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Senate had earlier approved by unanimous consent without amendment S. 2450 on February 27, 2008. See Sen. Rept. No. 110-264. The President is expected to sign the legislation in the next several weeks. . . "

Vendor Files for Bankruptcy - What Happens to Your Data?

Boise law support company files bankruptcy. "A Boise litigation support company that was sued last year by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over accusations of sexual harassment filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week. . . "

Lawmaker Allegedly Deletes E-Mail at His Attorney's Direction

"Fumo to argue he deleted files at ex-attorney Sprague's instruction. State Sen. Vince Fumo will argue that he was simply following the advice of his former attorney, Richard A. Sprague, when his office deleted e-mails and other documents from computers before federal authorities executed a search warrant for the material. . . . "

The big data dump. A deluge of electronic information may overwhelm American civil justice

"The big data dump. A deluge of electronic information may overwhelm American civil justice. DAWN BEYE’S teenage daughter suffers from anorexia nervosa and had to be treated in hospital at a cost of about $1,000 a day. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the Beyes’ insurance company, covered one month of the bills but then balked, demanding evidence that the affliction was “biologically based” rather than psychological. So Ms Beye got together with parents of other anorexic and bulimic teenagers and sued. Horizon immediately asked to see practically everything the teenagers had said on their Facebook and MySpace profiles, in instant-messaging threads, text messages, e-mails, blog posts and whatever else the girls might have done online. . . ."

Court Rules Kazaa User Destroyed Evidence By Scrubbing Hard Drive.

"Court Rules Kazaa User Destroyed Evidence By Scrubbing Hard Drive. In the final twist of a closely watched case, a federal judge has found Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell liable for copyright infringement and ordered him to pay more than $40,000 in damages to the record industry.  Judge Neil Wake ruled that Howell deliberately destroyed evidence in the case by scrubbing his hard drive shortly after he was sued for allegedly sharing tracks on Kazaa. . . ."