A New Way to Authenticate Video? State v. Windseth and the Business Records Exception

Special thanks to Sloan Godbey, Summer Law Fellow at UNC SOG, for their significant contributions to this post.

In March of last year, I did a thorough review of North Carolina cases addressing the authentication of surveillance video. I created a chart to understand what ingredients are adequate (and inadequate) to lay a foundation. That chart can be found here, and the related blog here.

However, a case came down in March of this year that raises significant questions about how video is authenticated, or at least introduces a new potential avenue for authenticating video. I’m afraid my cherished chart may soon be of limited utility. But such is the way the law develops!

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