From State v. Amyda, decided Friday by the Iowa Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Edward Mansfield:
In this sexual abuse case, we are asked to decide whether the district court erred in admitting a video. The video graphically shows the defendant abusing the victim. However, there was no chain-of-custody evidence connecting the video to the defendant. The victim was asleep at the time and could not personally attest to the abuse shown in the video. And the defendant claimed "deepfake."
On our review, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the video. The video came to the victim's attention about a month after the defendant had been in the victim's bedroom. The video appears to be taken by the perpetrator of the abuse at close range using a cellphone. It shows the victim sleeping, but she testified in detail that she recognized her bedroom, her bed and furnishings, the clothing she had been wearing, her legs and genitalia, and the defendant's tattooed hand—all as they had been that evening.
Collectively, these circumstances were enough to admit the video. And the defendant's mere speculation that the video was a deepfake was not enough to bar its admission….
The court concluded that the video had been adequately authenticated:
