From Turner v. State, decided Thursday by the Arkansas Supreme Court (in an opinion by Justice Shawn Womack):
The evidence presented at trial establishes the following account of events. On April 26, 2021, Shelby and Verser were sitting in a parked car after returning from dinner when they were ambushed by three gunmen. In a matter of seconds, twenty-three bullets were fired into the vehicle, striking Shelby and Verser repeatedly, killing both. Shelby, age twenty, and Verser, age twenty-three, were killed instantly. Turner, a close acquaintance of Shelby's, was implicated in facilitating the ambush. Testimony and phone records from the night showed that Turner had communicated with the gunmen multiple times just before the shooting, despite later denying that he knew them. These communications—coupled with security footage and witness testimony—presented Turner as the primary organizer of the murders….
After the shooting, Turner attempted to conceal his involvement…. [Among other things, a] key witness, … Pavliv[,] testified that after she informed Turner of police questioning, he sent a Snapchat message instructing her to withhold information about the gun….
Turner contends that the circuit court abused its discretion in allowing testimony from Pavliv about a self-destructing Snapchat message that Turner sent her in violation of Arkansas Rule of Evidence 1002. Specifically, Turner contends that admitting this testimony violated the best-evidence rule because the message itself was not produced. However, the State disputes the rule's applicability, given that Snapchat messages are designed to be deleted automatically. Testimony from Pavliv established that Snapchat messages self-destruct and were unavailable for retrieval, much like a telephone conversation, which does not produce a permanent record. Thus, the State claims the general exception to the best-evidence rule, Arkansas Rule of Evidence 1004, is implicated….
The "best evidence" rule provides, in relevant part, that "[t]o prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required," but not if:
