UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Iowa Supreme Court affirms the admission of video in sexual abuse case over defendant’s claim that it was a “deepfake”

by Samuel Province | October 23, 2026

The Court heard oral argument in State v. Amyda on September 9 and issued its opinion on October 9. Justice Mansfield wrote for the Court, which unanimously affirmed Max Amyda’s conviction for third degree sexual abuse.

Questions: Can a video of sexual assault be authenticated by circumstantial evidence where there is no witness to the assault, no witness to the video, and no one to verify the video’s origin? Does the defendant’s contention that it is a “deepfake” give rise to a genuine issue of authenticity under the best evidence rule?

On May 5, 2023, Clara (a pseudonym) had plans with Amyda at her sister’s house, where she was staying. They drank rum together in the garage before going to the bedroom where they kissed. Amyda undressed and said that he wanted to have sex, and Clara refused. Because she had a lot to drink, she fell asleep fully clothed, and awoke around noon the next day, finding that “everything seemed fine.” Roughly a month later, Clara’s sister forwarded her a close range video depicting a man’s hand abusing her while she slept. She recognized a tattoo on that hand as Amyda’s, but when she tried to contact him, he blocked her.

Law enforcement attempted to arrange an interview with Amyda, but when Amyda failed to appear, he was arrested. Police did not obtain a warrant for Amyda’s electronic devices. An officer could not trace the video’s digital footprint, and when arrested Amyda’s hand had a different tattoo than that depicted in the video. However, a tattoo artist testified that the tattoo appeared to have been freshly applied within the previous eight to twelve days. Amyda moved in limine to exclude the video before trial as unauthenticated, vulnerable to “deepfake” technology, and inadmissible as a copy under the best-evidence rule. At a pretrial hearing, Clara identified her bedroom, bed, blanket, pillowcases, the top she was wearing, her legs and body, and Amyda’s hand via the tattoo and scars. The district court denied the motion, overruled Amyda’s renewed objections at trial, and a jury convicted Amyda. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Court granted further review.

Amyda argued that the Court’s 2025 decision in State v. Manning had identified only two ways of authenticating a video: a firsthand witness who testifies that the video accurately portrays the event, or a “silent witness” who describes the recording process and testifies that it produces accurate recordings—neither of which was available in this case. He maintained that the use of “distinctive characteristics” to corroborate a video and nothing more effectively erases any protection that Rule 5.901 provides against the admission of fabricated evidence. The State countered that circumstantial evidence has always been sufficient and that Amyda’s deepfake theory was simply speculation and not evidence at all.

Ultimately, the Court agreed with the State. It explained that Manning does not limit authentication to two methods, and “[t]here is no special codicil to the rules of evidence governing videos.” It explained that the Court has long relied upon circumstantial evidence for authentication, citing a 1980 Iowa Supreme Court decision State v. Holderness, a burglary case where a photograph of the defendant outside the victim’s garage, from a roll of film a neighborhood boy found and brought by, was admitted, and State v. Farnum, a 1986 decision where a detective’s testimony that he recognized the décor of the defendant’s bedroom, together with similar photographs authenticated by the victims, was upheld as proper authentication. The Court explained that the circumstantial evidence in this case went beyond the distinctive characteristics because the video surfaced a little over a month after the night Amyda was in Clara’s room, appeared to have been filmed on the abuser’s cellphone, and Amyda blocked Clara when she reached out. The distinctive characteristics identified “ranged from the private (Clara’s bedroom) to the shockingly private (her genitalia),” the Court reasoned.

Finally, regarding the best-evidence rule, the Court rejected the State’s argument that a video does not qualify as either a “recording” or a “photograph” under the rules of evidence. It explained that before 2017 Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.1001 expressly defined “photographs” to include video tapes, and that the 2017 restyling, which defined a photograph as “a photographic image or its equivalent stored in any form,” was nonsubstantive, so a video remains a continuous “photographic image.” Still, a duplicate is admissible unless a “genuine question” is raised as to the original’s authenticity, and the Court agreed with the State that Amyda raised only conjecture. Amyda’s closing argument began, “Is it fake? Is it real? Ladies and gentlemen, we live in the age of artificial intelligence,” and continued, “people can manipulate a video to look like whatever they want to look – they want it to look like.” The Court stated that Amyda’s counsel relied “on popular culture rather than any of the evidence in the case,” attempting to “cash in on the so-called ‘liar’s dividend,’” where public awareness of deepfakes makes it easier to raise doubts about legitimate evidence.

The Court concluded by noting, as the State pointed out, that the federal Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules is considering a new Rule 901(c) that would require a party claiming AI fabrication to present evidence sufficient to support a finding of fabrication before the court inquires further, and explaining that Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.1003 “in a sense” already works that way.

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court 2026-27