I’d like to know what are the different ways to use email as evidence in court.
Specifically, I’d like to know what happens in the case of emails that are no longer in the inbox or stored in a folder in the Mac, using Mail, but are still available through the sent folder with it’s original message, its reply, and several other replies there. Because this is the sent folder, you can’t see the headers so the question is what are other ways to use them as proof. I know this is may be different according to local law, although it would be good to know what’s technically possible or from the point of view of legal common sense.
There are different standards in different countries, but I think you are allowed to present anything you deem to support your side as evidence, and then the other side can contradict or the court can reject it.
Common sense says that evidence coming out of your own computer is extremely weak, it can be the plain truth but there are no way to prove the autencity or that you haven’t tampered with them in any way.
But if you are lucky to still have the originals left on the mail server, and especially if the server is hosted by an external part like your ISP, that makes them a much stronger evidence (because you can’t edit those without hacking the host and manage to get a privileged access to the mail server).
If your replies are not quoted in the follow up mails, again is the sent folder also on your computer or are they sent in a way so there are copies in an external sent folder at your mail host. That or if you have activated the recieved/read request when sending emails and got a “post master read mail message” from the reciever, then also your replies is stronger as evidence.
Just my two cents, IANAL but I have discussed the topic with my local court judges.
I should also point out that in court you need a print out of the emails, of course, and you must be able to verify them. Preferably you can give your lawyer or a witness access to your mail account and to print them out as evidence.