ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY EVIDENCE
Electronic discovery of evidence applies differently in criminal and civil cases. This can be defined as the process of identifying, gathering and presenting electronically stored information to be used as evidence in a court of law ( CDS, 2020). Emails fall under this category, whereby the admissibility of the specific emails depends on the particular case in question. In civil cases, the electronic discovery of specific emails and the production of the same in a court of law is determined by the provisions of rule 34 of the federal rules of civil procedure.
For civil cases, the discovery of electronic evidence does not necessarily require the investigators to procure a warranty before the production of such evidence to court (Murphy, Esworthy & Byers, 2012).This simply means that the means which the advocate or prosecutor procures the emails used as evidence, does not count as long asthe needed information is valid and can be proven to be so. This however is different when it comes to criminal cases where warrants must be issued to give the investigating team the legal right to search through the emails of a suspect. For a warrant to be issued, the police must illustrate that tentative evidence lies in the emails of the suspect. There are exceptions to this general rule of warrants, where a court may admit warrantless searches.
In the case of United States versus Ross(1982), the court pointed out the exceptions to the fourth amendment rule on individual privacy. In this case, the supreme court held that the police may conduct a warrantless search on automobiles that ferry closed containers. The court continued to say that such checks on road blocks are random and cannot require policemen to have warrants for every single car before they conduct the search. This would not only be unreasonable but also delay justice. Any evidence, therefore, that gets procured while conducting such a search would be admissible in the court of law as an exception to the rule on warranted searches.
REFERENCES
Complete Discovery Source, 2020. What is E-Discovery. Accessed 29th June 2020, at https://cdslegal.com/knowledge/the-basics-what-is-e-discovery/
Justin P. Murphy, Matthew A.S. Esworthy and Stephen M. Byers, 2010. The State of criminal Justice. Accessed, 29th June 2020, at https://www.crowell.com/files/E-Discovery-in-Criminal-Cases.pdf
United States Versus Ross, 102 S. Ct. 2157 (1982). Retrieved 29th June 2020, at https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jclc74&div=11&id=&page=