Through its law enforcement agencies and their contracted agencies, the government is duty-bound to preserve specific types of evidence gathered and processed during criminal investigations and prosecutions. This duty is enshrined within the 6th and 14th amendments to the US constitution, which guarantees explicitly due process and a fair trial to defendants.
This duty to protect is closely related to the requirement that the government discloses all kinds of evidence, including the ones that can be used by the defendant to their advantage. This requirement makes evidence management solutions an integral part of the law enforcement process.
Which Kinds of Evidence Must Be Preserved?
Needless to say, not every piece of evidence needs to be preserved. The two most important kinds that must be preserved are those considered as either “material” or “exculpatory.”
Material evidence is any kind of evidence that is relevant to the case. On the other hand, exculpatory evidence can be used by the defendant to clear him or herself of guilt.
Exactly what criteria are used to determine which evidence is material or exculpatory varies with every case. However, some particular pieces of evidence, like alibi and forensic evidence, are treated as both, mainly because they are often used to determine the defendant’s location at the time of the crime.
Alibi evidence is usually an eyewitness testimony or CCTV footage. Police and other law enforcement agencies are usually not required to record or tape these testimonies. But when they do, they are required by law to preserve them. This is usually done with witnesses who may not be able to appear in court—for instance, those who are terminally ill.
Meanwhile, forensic evidence usually consists of DNA-based evidence that is collected from the crime scene. These include the murder weapons, blood samples, fingerprints, and hair, among others.
Other kinds of evidence that need to be preserved and disclosed to the defendant are investigative notes made during interrogation and emergency call recordings or transcripts.
The sheer amount of evidence that must be collected, processed, and stored properly can be overwhelming. This is why there is a need for a reliable evidence tracker, which helps law enforcement agencies in ensuring that their duty to protect and preserve evidence is being fulfilled.
What Happens If the Evidence Is Mishandled, Leading to Loss or Tampering?
One of the most important tenets of the modern justice system is that defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty. This means that the burden of proof lies heavily on the plaintiffs. As such, if the prosecution doesn’t have enough evidence to present due to mishandling, then the defendant is likely to have his or her charges dismissed in court.
Fortunately, that principle cuts both ways. If a defendant wants to prove that the government failed to do its duty of preserving evidence, he or she needs only to establish the following:
• That the evidence was material and potentially exculpatory, and;
• That law enforcement personnel acted in bad faith.
While this is tough for defendants to do in most cases, the court can favor the defendant purely because of prior actions.
For example, the fact that the mishandled evidence was processed in the first place means that the police officers deemed the piece of evidence to be material in the case. If the evidence was particularly exculpatory, the court can declare a mistrial or, even worse, acquit the defendant of all charges.
Don’t Lose Evidence—Use an Effective Evidence Management System
The duty to preserve evidence is one of the most important parts of effective law enforcement. To help protect the department it is also critical that your evidence system maintains a log that tracks all activity in the program including what was done, when, where and who did it. While the procedure of collecting evidence can be tedious, it is the only way to effectively and rightfully bring criminals to justice.
To prevent mistrials or case dismissals due to tampered evidence, law enforcement needs to have an evidence management solution that effectively tracks the change of custody and has features, such as barcodes and labels, that make storage and retrieval easier.
Evidence Management Solutions for Law Enforcement
PMI Evidence Tracker™ provides robust evidence management systems designed for law enforcement use. Our systems come in different price points to enable police departments to scale up or down, depending on their inventory levels. Contact us today to find out more!
