Phone Photos as evidence

[Bill Schade]

As technology marches forward and camera phones are so common place, I wonder about the day that evidence photos are routinely taken with agency cell phones. Vendors are already offering products that allow capture of latent prints on a phone or tablet for submission to AFIS for search. Sounds sexy to get a "hit" that way, but what about the image itself? How is it retained as evidence? How do you ensure that it is removed from the phone once it is transferred to the photo repository of the agency? Do all phone capture in the same format? how about photo quality.

Is anyone currently using tablets or phones to capture evidence photos? How about scene shots or other crime scene photographs?

Has anyone developed policy on this? Not just the policy on how to capture the images, but policy on managing them.

Seems like we will all be faced with this sooner rather than later.

And lets not talk about what "accreditation requires" I'm curious about what practical issues were delt with and how is it working if you are in fact using phone for documentation.

[Shane Turnidge]

Hi Bill, we are advising our folks to not capture evidence with their personal phones/tablets for that very reason.
As an aside, the quality of this type of evidence is now getting to the point where we can use photo's captured with phones and tablets against known subjects.
I have three cases going through the Court system right now where the friction ridges visible in the images have resulted in identifications.
It's probably a good idea to reach out to your agency's investigators and advise them to consider having images of hands or fingers looked at by your latent examiners.

Shane Turnidge

[Ken Chappell]

Our policy states that you can use your smart phone to capture images but with the full understanding that your personal camera could be seized and placed into evidence itself if the defense attorney requests it and calls it in to question.

[Neville]

The recent issuing of Iphones to front line staff has seen the increased use of phones being used to take photos. As much as I and others advising against their use and the Policy guidelines being breached by their use, still we are proudly advised of their use by staff, HQ even have a site showing how their use has been beneficial in fast case resolution.
It's like standing in front of a speeding train

[Tazman]

I wonder about the day that evidence photos are routinely taken with agency cell phones.

I would expect the convergence of a sharp defense attorney and an unprepared prosecutor might result in the officer having to produce the phone impromptu in court and open the photo file to the original image in memory. The untidy next step would be if the defense attorney started scanning through other photos on the phone and questioning the officer about them. That could allow a defense attorney to create massive distraction from the case on trial by questioning other cases, traffic stops, etc., that would be on the agency phone.

Now imagine what could happen if it were the officer's personal phone. Are there photos on your personal phone you might not want viewed in court with cross examination under oath?

[L.J.Steele]

I would expect the convergence of a sharp defense attorney and an unprepared prosecutor might result in the officer having to produce the phone impromptu in court and open the photo file to the original image in memory. The untidy next step would be if the defense attorney started scanning through other photos on the phone and questioning the officer about them. That could allow a defense attorney to create massive distraction from the case on trial by questioning other cases, traffic stops, etc., that would be on the agency phone.

Now imagine what could happen if it were the officer's personal phone. Are there photos on your personal phone you might not want viewed in court with cross examination under oath?

I'd expect the judges I deal with to put a fast stop to any efforts to widen the case with irrelevant data unless the issue is investigative failure. If the phone, for example, held detailed crime scene pictures of several incidents, but only the bare bones about this one, then one might argue that the officer in this case failed to follow proper procedure -- a defense with a number of risks, but one that is available.

A more critical issue is a possible Brady violation for failure to turn over all potentially exculpatory information if the defense becomes aware that the officer has case-related stuff on a person device that was not turned over in discovery. A Brady failure can derail a case because of the violation of the defendant's federal constitutional rights. Defense may well ask for a continuance, ask for a copy of the entire phone memory, or to have its expert examine the phone to ensure that nothing was deleted or altered.

[George Reis]

I've always agreed with the adage that the best camera to use is the one that you have with you. I don't understand how this is like standing in front of a speeding train. What I do suggest is that agencies who are seeing this use work with their administration to develop good policies that would 1) transfer all images in their native format to the departments archives; and 2) erase those same images from the phone. The other thing I would consider in a policy is determining when it makes sense to use a cell phone vs. waiting ten minutes for someone to arrive with a better camera, better lights, etc.

The first time I saw a cell phone used in a case was when I was still at Newport Beach PD (so it was prior to 5/04). We were at a suspicious death scene and one of our patrol officers photographed the exterior of the house and sent them to the detective who was typing up the search warrant at the department. It saved a little time and gas, wasn't a big deal, but I thought that the implications were huge (in a good way). I still think so. It's just a matter of using common sense in developing policies.

And, this isn't new. Anyone remember Polaroids? How many times did you see officers, investigators, detectives with their personal collection of Polaroids? This was the same issue, and the answer then was to develop a simple policy and enforce it. Same thing now.

George

[Bill Schade]

Thank you George for a thoughtful response.

I too believe it will be a matter of policy and procedure that will be called into question.

So my original question still stands
"Has anyone already developed a policy on the practical use of camera phones and managing the images submitted"

[Neville]

no

[bficken]

Bill -

While we absolutely discourage the use of personal cell phones to take photographs, it unfortunately doesn't stop all of our Deputies from doing it anyway.

We give them two options on how to handle the photographs once they are taken. 1) they can submit the media card into evidence, or 2) they can burn the images from the media card onto CD and then submit the CD as evidence. In either case, the Deputy will detail which option he picked in his report, and a chain of custody goes onto the envelope of the card/CD. This tracks how the images got from the Deputy's hand and into the Property Unit.

The Property Unit assigns an official Item Number to the envelope and then sends it over to the forensic unit for processing. Forensic personnel in the laboratory upload the images onto a digital file management system. We used to burn them onto CD (if they weren't already), but we recently made the transfer to digital storage. A log is kept in the forensic unit of the case number of every card/CD that comes in. If it is a media card that was submitted, then the card gets formatted and returned to the Deputy once the images are uploaded. In the case of a CD, the CD is considered a "temporary container" of the images and therefore is destroyed once the images are uploaded. The envelopes get scanned into our system to preserve a copy of the chain of custody and then destroyed since they no longer contain anything. We used to just file the empty envelopes away - so that is an option as well.

Once uploaded, the digital file management system tracks everything that happens to an image. Every time it is accessed by a user, every time it is downloaded, etc. The user must always create a note within the system as to why any images are being downloaded (i.e. "copy CD made for DA's Office). So if an attorney ever needs it, an audit trail depicting every action on an image can be printed from the digital file management system and handed over.

This goes for all scene photos as well as latent print photos. When an examiner goes to conduct a comparison of the images of latent prints, he/she may download them onto a CD. This gets tracked both in the digital file management system, in his/her case notes, and in his/her report.

I'm not sure if that answers your question. And it's only one of many possibilities on how to handle photographs.

[Bill Schade]

Thank you for your reply

It is exactly what I was interested in and seems to be a realistic, sound policy

[antonroland]

What would we do in the event of recent smart phones that make use of embedded internal storage rather than cards?

So some (most?) have both internal storage and removable cards but sometimes they are quite a mission to remove. This means the device must be tethered via USB or connected via wi-fi or bluetooth.

The wonders of modern technology...sound more like SOP Mission Impossible to me...

Good luck folks...