Charging the defense for extra photographs and charts?

[Cindy Rennie]

Are there police departments 'out there' that charge a fee for the production of extra copies of crime-scene photographs and/or the production of extra fingerprint charts?

Defense counsel sometimes request enlargements of the crime-scene photos and/or fingerprint charts of other latents identified at the scene.

How do you respond to these requests?

[Bill]

I don't know about charging for crime scene photos. We generally put crime scene photos on a disk if the defense requests them for discovery. If the defense wants to have copies of the latents & ten-prints, for their own outside expert, we put those on a disk as well.

We don't make charts for the defense. It takes too long and we have other cases to work on. If they want to examine a chart in discovery prior to trial, they may make an appointment with the prosecutor and we will be happy to have them examine it in the prosecutor's office or the law library at the courts building. We don't make a chart for every case. We make a chart if the prosecutor requests one. We are short-staffed and have other work to do.

In either case, crime scene photos or latent lifts, the defense is responsible for producing their own prints from the disk. If cost is an issue, such as a case of an indigent defendant, the attorneys may petition the court for funds such as they do when an outside expert is appointed. I believe there is a process in the court system here for defense fees incurred during their appointment for an indigent defendant. However, I can't swear to it.

We buy 10,000 disks at a time, so the cost is minimal. We should charge by the hour with an 80 hour minimum. Maybe we could fund a trip or two for IAI training.

We do, however, charge for Xerox copies for Freedom of Information Act Requests. I think it's somewhere around $.20-$.30 per page. I don't recall if there is a minimum fee or if there are any other fees attached to the FOIA processing or not.

Hope this helps.

Bill

[sandra wiese]

I can't speak for my new department as those duties don't fall into my lap anymore, but at my old department we did charge, but only if the attorney asking did not work for the DA or public defender. In Colorado, we are allowed by law to charge for our services, but within reason. Like it might cost about 3 bucks for a 5 page report or less. We charged $10 for a disc of photos, up to 50 per disc and then more accordingly. It was $20 for 5 photos actually printed at 3x5 size, with .50 added for each additional. This generally put the kibosh on printing (I think I would get maybe 3 actual print requests a year) since anyone can get pictures printed better, faster and cheaper from a disc than we could do for them, and our fees were not unreasonable for a disc (and should not be, since it takes so little time to burn one).

Perhaps laws and customs vary from place to place. Essentially, if someone was working for the state, prosecution or defense, no charge and I never found anyone who tried to take advantage of that or were unecessarily harsh (at least after a come to Sandra meeting, in case they tried to cop an attitude--lawyers, ya know). If they were court [b]appointed [/b]then they do get to pay as that is not 'working for the state' and they do have recourse for reimbursement through our courts.

All that said: I have found that it is completely advantagous for me to be cooperative with all attornies, especially since I do not believe I am on anyone's "side" except the side of the evidence. I DO make photoshop charts for all matches of suspects or otherwise unknown people (meaning I don't make charts for victim matches or employee matches, etc.) and these are printed and three copies are forwarded with my report to the detective: one for the file, one for the prosecutor and one for the defense. I've said it before and I will say it again: "too busy" is a bad answer. At my old department I was the only examiner and full time criminalist. Here, in the third largest city in Colorado with plenty o'crime and only one and a half latent examiners (down from three--anyone want a job cause we are hiring! '; ) I still do chart all matches. It seems like a lot on the surface, however, once you learn how to do it you will see that 1) a charted match meets and exceeds all current legal requirements (particularly about another examiner being able to follow your thinking/see how you made the match), 2) it takes about 15 minutes on average--which seems to be the same amount of time people spend documenting their matches with notes, 3) it is much easier on the eyes, which I plan on using and keeping as healthy as possible for as long as possible and 4) when the defense sees the chart, they also see the match and don't want to see me in court. (Read: no time having to print out extra thing that and the other enlargement or whatever cause they don't want to go to court) As the only full time examiner for a city of this size, I guarantee I have better things to do than answer worthless subpoenas. The charts save untold numbers of hours hanging around court.

Stepping down now. Thanks!