Chain of custody
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The "chain of custody" is a concept in jurisprudence which applies to the handling of evidence and its integrity.
"Chain of custody" also refers to the document or paper trail showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of physical and electronic evidence.
Because evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to avoid later allegations of tampering or misconduct which can compromise the case of the prosecution toward acquittal or to overturning a guilty verdict upon appeal.
Establishing the chain of custody is especially important when the evidence consists of fungible goods. In practice this most often applies to illegal drugs which have been seized by law enforcement personnel.
An identifiable person must always have the physical custody of a piece of evidence. In practice, this means that a police officer or detective will take charge of a piece of evidence, document its collection, and hand it over to an evidence clerk for storage in a secure place. These transactions, and every succeeding transaction between the collection of the evidence and its appearance in court, should be completely documented chronologically in order to withstand legal challenges to the authenticity of the evidence. Documentation should include the conditions under which the evidence is gathered, the identity of all evidence handlers, duration of evidence custody, security conditions while handling or storing the evidence, and the manner in which evidence is transferred to subsequent custodians each time such a transfer occurs.
An example of "Chain of Custody" would be the recovery of a bloody knife at a murder scene:
Officer A collects the knife and places it into a container, then gives it to Forensics Tech B. Forensics Tech B takes the knife to the lab and collects fingerprints and other evidence from the knife. Forensics Tech B then gives the knife and all evidence gathered from the knife to Evidence Clerk C. Evidence Clerk C then stores the evidence until it is needed, documenting everyone who has accessed the original evidence. (The knife, and original copies of the lifted fingerprints)
The Chain of Custody requires that from the moment the evidence is collected, every transfer of evidence from person to person be documented AND that it be provable that nobody else could have accessed that evidence. It is best to keep the number of transfers as low as possible.
In the courtroom, if the defendant questions the Chain of Custody of the evidence it can be proven that the knife in the evidence room is the same knife found at the crime scene. However, if there are discrepancies and it cannot be proven who had the knife at a particular point in time, then the Chain of Custody is broken and the defendant can ask to have the resulting evidence declared inadmissible.
"Chain of custody" is also used in most chemical sampling situations to maintain the integrity of the sample by providing documentation of the control, transfer, and analysis of samples. Chain of custody is especially important in environmental work where sampling can identify the existence of contamination and can be used to identify the responsible party.
Compare with: provenance and forensic science
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