Text Messages, Social Media and Phone Records as Evidence in Michigan Domestic Violence Cases

Text messages, social media posts, call logs and similar records are used in Michigan domestic violence cases by prosecutors and by the defense. To be admitted, a message has to be authenticated, which means the party offering it must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the party claims it is.^[1] It then has to clear the hearsay rules and the general test of relevance weighed against unfair prejudice.^[6][7]

Michigan has no special statute for digital evidence in these cases. The ordinary rules of evidence apply, and this page walks through them in the order a court does.

Why messages matter in these cases

Messages can bear on several questions at once: what happened, who said what afterward, and what the relationship was like. In People v Boshell, a murder case, the Court of Appeals found text messages between the defendant and the victim highly relevant to show the past relationship between them.^[8] Evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable.^[9]

Messages are also sometimes the alleged offense itself. Threats, repeated unwanted contact and posts about another person can be charged under separate statutes, which are covered in Are threats a crime in Michigan?, Stalking law, Malicious use of telecommunications and Online harassment and posting messages.

Step one: authentication

Authentication is a low threshold with two stages. At the first stage, the judge asks only whether the party offering the item has made a prima facie showing that a reasonable juror might conclude it is what the party claims. At the second, if there is a genuine dispute about whether the item is authentic, that question is for the jury.^[2]

The evidence rules list examples of how the first-stage showing can be made. The list is expressly not complete.^[10] The examples most relevant to messages are:

• A witness with knowledge. Testimony that an item is what it is claimed to be.^[10] For a text thread, that is typically the person who sent or received it.
• Distinctive characteristics. The appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics of the item, taken together with all the circumstances.^[11] A message that refers to things only the supposed author would know, or that fits what the author did next, is the usual illustration.
• Voice identification. For a voicemail or voice message, an opinion identifying a person's voice, whether heard firsthand or through a recording, based on hearing the voice under circumstances that connect it with the alleged speaker.^[11]

Evidence supporting authentication may be direct or circumstantial and need not be free of all doubt.^[12] The party opposing the exhibit may argue that no reasonable juror could find it authentic, but must do so on the basis of the other side's showing; the opponent may not present evidence denying genuineness at the authentication stage. After the exhibit is admitted, both sides may submit evidence and argument to the jury about whether it is genuine and reliable.^[12]

Social media: the Smith case

People v Smith, a 2021 Court of Appeals decision, addresses social media evidence directly. The court said that when deciding whether a social media account is authentic, courts should be mindful of concerns such as fake social media accounts, hacked accounts, and deep fakes.^[4]

In Smith, a trial court's decision to treat four Facebook posts as authenticated was upheld, although the Court of Appeals called it a close call. An officer testified that the exhibits were accurate depictions of posts he had viewed, he had personal knowledge of the defendant and of the people pictured, and there was nothing on the face of the posts suggesting they were faked or hacked.^[5] The court added that as technology advances, trial courts and lawyers will need to be vigilant when considering questions of authenticity at both stages.^[5]

Records from the company

Records obtained from a provider or platform can be authenticated without a live witness. In People v Dingee, decided in 2025, Facebook records were admitted as self-authenticating certified business records. The Court of Appeals held the prosecutor had met the minimum requirements of the certification rule even without the separate, formal, written notice the rule prescribes, because the prosecutor's disclosures identified the certified records.^[13] The rule itself calls for reasonable written notice before trial and for the record and certification to be made available for inspection.^[14]

Company records can show that a message was sent from an account or number at a given time. Who was using the device is a separate question for the other authentication evidence.

Step two: hearsay

An authenticated message can still be excluded as hearsay. That is the second lesson of Smith: three of the four authenticated Facebook exhibits were improperly admitted because they consisted of hearsay for which there was no exception.^[5] A written assertion is a "statement" for hearsay purposes, and hearsay is not admissible unless the rules provide otherwise.^[15][6]

Who wrote the message	Offered by	Hearsay analysis
The defendant	The prosecution	Not hearsay: a statement made by a party and offered against that party.[3]
The defendant	The defendant	The party-statement rule applies to statements offered against the party who made them, so a different route is needed.[3]
The complaining witness or a third person	Either side, to prove what the message says is true	Hearsay, admissible only if an exception applies.[6]
A witness who testifies differently at trial	Either side, to challenge the testimony	An earlier unsworn inconsistent statement may be used to judge credibility but generally is not substantive evidence.[16]

Threats deserve their own mention. A defendant's threat is a party's own statement, and a threat against a witness is generally admissible as conduct that can demonstrate consciousness of guilt.^[17] In People v Kowalak the Court of Appeals treated a defendant's threat as an admission by a party opponent and so not hearsay; the testimony of the witness who relayed the victim's account of the threat was a separate statement that needed, and had, its own exception.^[18]

A message may also be described to police rather than produced. In People v Meissner, a complainant's oral and written statements to police describing threatening text messages were admitted under MCL 768.27c because they described threats of physical injury and were made at or very near the time she received the messages.^[19] See Statements to police under MCL 768.27c.

Step three: context and fairness

Message threads are easy to excerpt. If a party introduces all or part of a writing, the other side may require the introduction, at that time, of any other part, or any other writing, that in fairness ought to be considered at the same time.^[20] That is the rule a party invokes when one message is offered without the messages around it.

The court may also exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.^[7]

Originals, screenshots and copies

The evidence rules say an original writing, recording, or photograph is required in order to prove its content unless the rules or a statute provide otherwise. A duplicate is admissible to the same extent as the original unless a genuine question is raised about the original's authenticity or the circumstances make it unfair to admit the duplicate.^[21]

The sources this guide relies on do not include a Michigan appellate decision applying those rules to a screenshot of a text message, so this page does not state a rule about screenshots. The safe practical course follows from the text of the rule: a copy is strongest when nobody can raise a genuine question about the original, and that is easiest when the original still exists.

Preserving messages

These are practical steps, not legal rules.

• Keep the device and do not delete the thread, even the parts that seem unhelpful.
• Capture whole conversations with dates, times and the sender's number or account name visible, not single messages.
• Back up the phone, and save voicemails as audio files.
• Write down how and when each capture was made, and who made it.
• Do not edit, crop or annotate the images you intend to rely on. Keep an untouched set.
• Do not log in to another person's account to collect evidence. See GPS tracking and spying on a partner.
• Give the material to your lawyer or, if you are a witness, to the officer or the prosecutor's office handling the case, rather than posting it.

Deleting messages after a case begins can create problems of its own. Asking another person to delete theirs raises the problems described in Witness tampering and pressuring a victim not to testify.

Messages sent after the arrest

Where a bond condition or court order bars contact, messages sent in spite of it are evidence the prosecution can use: a party's own statements offered against that party are not hearsay.^[3] If the contact was intended to keep a witness from testifying and succeeds, the witness's earlier statements may be admitted under the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing rule.^[22] The contact rules are explained in No-contact orders explained and Violating a no-contact order.

How each side obtains the other's messages

In the criminal case, discovery is the starting point. On request, the prosecuting attorney must provide any exculpatory information or evidence known to the prosecutor, police reports concerning the case, and any written or recorded statements by the defendant.^[23] On request, a party must also provide a description of, and an opportunity to inspect, tangible physical evidence, including documents and photographs.^[24] See Discovery in Michigan domestic violence cases.