IAPE Evidence Blog

Lead­ing the way through education

Our goal is to pro­vide edu­ca­tion through train­ing on cur­rent issues that effect the prop­erty and evi­dence field. Train­ing on safety con­cerns, audits and inven­to­ries, pack­ag­ing, legal updates, and pro­ce­dure con­sid­er­a­tions to name a few topics. 

Inform­ing publications

The Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence mag­a­zine is the heart of our asso­ci­a­tion and train­ing infor­ma­tion. Our mag­a­zine is pub­lished on a quar­terly basis to keep you informed of devel­op­ments in the field. If unex­pected changes occur, newslet­ters will pro­vide you with updates on leg­is­la­tion, train­ing and news. 

Enhanc­ing professionalism

IAPE pro­motes pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment of law enforce­ment per­son­nel includ­ing exec­u­tives, man­age­ment, super­vi­sors, prop­erty and evi­dence han­dlers for advance­ment within the pro­fes­sion. The more knowl­edge you have, the more valu­able you become. Prop­erty per­son­nel inter­ested in stay­ing cur­rent pro­fes­sion­ally and con­tribut­ing toward growth are a wel­come asset to IAPE. 

Involv­ing you regionally

IAPE encour­ages the for­mu­la­tion of regional chap­ters, giv­ing you the oppor­tu­nity to get involved in the asso­ci­a­tions pol­icy mak­ing pro­grams at the local level. Local meet­ings may be held or a chap­ter formed in accor­dance with IAPE guide­lines. Each region has a locally elected board of direc­tors which admin­is­ter regional oper­a­tions and programs. 

Guide books

IAPE pro­duces yearly guide books on areas of spe­cial con­cern. The 1993 Guide Book (Blood­borne Pathogens) will be sent as part of the mem­ber­ship packet to each new or renew­ing IAPE member.

What makes a property/evidence offi­cer an effec­tive wit­ness in court? We con­tacted evi­dence offi­cers, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys and judges in search of a uni­form answer. There seems to be con­sid­er­able agree­ment on what helps, and hurts, wit­ness effec­tive­ness. The main answer uni­ver­sally acknowl­edged was pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Judges and jurors expect pro­fes­sional law enforce­ment per­son­nel to demon­strate qual­i­ties that make it easy to believe in the per­son tes­ti­fy­ing. In each instance we found that qual­i­ties and traits nec­es­sary to be an effec­tive wit­ness could be devel­oped with prac­tice. Although indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties some­times make a wit­ness more lik­able, the over­all impact of an evi­dence officer’s tes­ti­mony seems to evolve around the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to work on court­room skills. Devel­op­ment of court­room skills is essen­tial to being an effec­tive witness. 

BE PREPARED

Pre-trial and pre-hearing prepa­ra­tion is basic to pro­vid­ing effec­tive tes­ti­mony. As one inspec­tor put it, “I think many of the prob­lems with tes­ti­mony are brought on by not being prepared.” 

The amount of prepa­ra­tion depends on the seri­ous­ness of the case and the nature and scope of the tes­ti­mony that will be given. For exam­ple, one evi­dence offi­cer reviews the reports, chain of cus­tody, sup­ple­men­tal reports and all prop­erty records at least one week before trial. After review­ing every­thing, he then tries to fig­ure out how a defense attor­ney will try to attack his tes­ti­mony. “I try to plan how to respond to ques­tions I think will be asked. It’s like a chess game: What move is the defense attor­ney going to make?”

In most cases, such exten­sive prepa­ra­tion is imprac­ti­cal and unnec­es­sary. There are cer­tain things that should al ways be done before tak­ing the wit­ness stand, regard­less of the impor­tance or com­plex­ity of any case. 

Read your report and doc­u­men­ta­tion
No one can be an effec­tive wit­ness unless they have com­mand of the facts they are giv­ing tes­ti­mony on. This does not mean mem­o­riz­ing every date on the chain of cus­tody. Too many facts from mem­ory sound rehearsed and phony. “If some­body asks me to list all the offi­cers who signed the evi­dence in or out, I want to look at my paper­work so the jury knows they’re get­ting exactly what hap­pened, not my best rec­ol­lec­tion,” said an offi­cer. “When I review my sign-out sheets or other doc­u­men­ta­tion I just try to get a feel for the case. I want to know how things pro­gressed. I mem­o­rize some main details, like when I took the item into cus­tody and when it may have been sent to the lab for analysis.” 

A defense attor­ney told us the most effec­tive wit­ness he had ever cross-examined was a prop­erty offi­cer who took the stand with­out even scan­ning the prop­erty report. “He came in late, so the DA didn’t have time to talk to him. He kept con­fus­ing the facts in my case with the facts in sim­i­lar cases he’d han­dled. It was not pretty.” 

Read tran­scripts
If you have given any tes­ti­mony in the case pre­vi­ously (such as pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing or motions to sup­press evi­dence), obtain a copy of the tran­script from the DA and read it over care­fully. This will help refresh your mem­ory about the facts of the case. Also, you may notice some­thing you said that was incor­rect. If so, tell the D A so the jury will hear about the mis­take from the pros­e­cu­tion, not the defense. 

Talk to the DA
In every case, a pre-trial or pre-hearing meet­ing with the DA is absolutely essen­tial. Usu­ally it will only take a few min­utes. In a com­pli­cated case where, for exam­ple if chain of cus­tody may be ques­tioned on a crit­i­cal piece of evi­dence, it may take hours. 

Regard­less, there must be some direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the D A and the evi­dence offi­cer for the pur­pose of review­ing the facts of the case, dis­cussing what sub­jects will be cov­ered on direct and cross-examination, and try­ing to antic­i­pate any prob­lems that might come up. 

Visit the Scene
It may not always be nec­es­sary to visit the scene of the crime in every case. How­ever, if part of your duties involve crime scene analy­sis or col­lec­tion of the evi­dence at the scene, it may be a very good idea. You may be asked to draw a dia­gram in court or be expected to answer ques­tions con­cern­ing loca­tions where evi­dence was collected. 

IMPARTIALITY

Sig­nif­i­cantly greater weight is given to tes­ti­mony by a judge or jury if the evi­dence offi­cer demon­strates an impar­tial, unbi­ased atti­tude. At the same time, cred­i­bil­ity suf­fers when it appears he or she has a per­sonal inter­est in the out­come of the case. This is not to imply that an offi­cer should look unin­ter­ested, bored, or pas­sive. Sim­ply stated, an offi­cer should demon­strate their only inter­est is in pre­sent­ing the facts. “Don’t go into the court­room car­ry­ing a torch or a spear. Just tell the truth,” sug­gested a judge. “If an offi­cer sticks to the truth, a defense attor­ney can cross-examine him until the end of time and won’t accom­plish anything.” 

An effec­tive police wit­ness will answer each ques­tion truth­fully, even if it might hurt the prosecution’s case. Accord­ing to one DA, “If an offi­cer fudges on some­thing he thinks will hurt the case, it will prob­a­bly come out from other wit­nesses. The officer’s cred­i­bil­ity is shot.” 

Tes­tify as if you are an expert wit­ness. Don’t worry about the ver­dict. One inspec­tor under­scored the theme, “A defense attor­ney will some­times ask a hypo­thet­i­cal ques­tion which could be answered either A or B. Answer A helps the pros­e­cu­tion, B helps the defense. Some offi­cers will only answer A, even if A and B are pos­si­ble. This causes a loss of credibility. ” 

Treat the DA and defense attor­ney alike
Impar­tial­ity can be demon­strated by deal­ing with the defense attor­ney in the same man­ner as the D A. One DA observed that police wit­nesses often appear friendly and relaxed when ques­tion by the DA, but when the cross-examination begins they often become defense. “There may be a change in the tone of voice. Some­times they move around in the chair, sort of squirm­ing; this is body lan­guage the jury picks up on. Don’t do this. Speak to the defense attor­ney with the same demeanor and atti­tude as the DA.” Another instance cited was say­ing “Yes, sir” to the DA, but reply­ing “That is cor­rect coun­selor” to the defense. If the pros­e­cu­tor mis­states some­thing, the offi­cer should cor­rect him just as he would cor­rect the Defense Attorney. 

Do not be eva­sive
Cred­i­bil­ity may also be hurt by attempts to avoid answer­ing an unam­bigu­ous ques­tion. Judges and jurors usu­ally see this as an indi­ca­tion the offi­cer has an inter­est in the out­come of the case, and that the answer would help the defense. One defense attor­ney com­mented “When an evi­dence tech is eva­sive, he looks defen­sive. I will keep ask­ing the ques­tion until I get a direct answer. I’ve asked ques­tions four times in a row. Even­tu­ally I get an answer, but it makes a bad impres­sion when an offi­cer or tech won’t answer an ambigu­ous question.”

Do not vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion
A void­ing answer­ing a ques­tion may hurt cred­i­bil­ity, but an attempt to vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion which was not requested may look like the offi­cer is try­ing to “help” the pros­e­cu­tion. Attempts to vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion often indi­cates the evi­dence offi­cer is not an impar­tial wit­ness. Just answer the ques­tion asked. Pro­vid­ing long expla­na­tions give the defense more ammu­ni­tion. Giv­ing facts lim­its chal­lenges to credibility.

Request to explain answers
While an evi­dence offi­cer should not vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion that was not requested, it is quite proper to request to explain an answer if an expla­na­tion is nec­es­sary to pre­vent mis­un­der­stand­ing. The best way to han­dle a sit­u­a­tion is to request per­mis­sion to explain the answer. For exam­ple: “The answer is yes, but with the courts per­mis­sion I would like to explain this answer to pre­vent mis­un­der­stand­ing.” Most judges will per­mit an expla­na­tion if approached in this man­ner. It would also be appro­pri­ate to sim­ply answer yes, then wait for the DA to request an explanation.

Don’t get angry
The most impor­tant, and most dif­fi­cult, thing any police wit­ness can do to become more effec­tive is to refuse to demon­strate anger toward the defense attor­ney. An officer’s image as an unbi­ased, impar­tial wit­ness will be sig­nif­i­cantly dam­aged if anger is shown toward the defense attor­ney. It is also dif­fi­cult to think clearly when angry. Wit­nesses lose effec­tive­ness when angry.

How­ever, if the offi­cer suc­cess­fully resists the impulse to demon­strate anger, the officer’s image as a pro­fes­sional will be strength­ened, no mat­ter how frus­trated the defense attor­ney gets. Poise and self-control are qual­i­ties which judges and jurors like to see in a witness.

Keep in mind that some defense attor­neys try to get evi­dence offi­cers angry on the wit­ness stand. “If a defense attor­ney gets argu­men­ta­tive, keep cool,” accord­ing to one judge. “There’s no point in hav­ing two fools in the courtroom.”

Don’t get sar­cas­tic or irri­ta­ble
Some­times an inad­ver­tent response to an obnox­ious attor­ney is to become sar­cas­tic or irri­ta­ble. In one case the defense attor­ney asked “Did the other evi­dence offi­cer ever move that piece of evi­dence?” The wit­ness replied “Well, I don’t know. You’d bet­ter ask him.” This type of ques­tion and answer went on for con­sid­er­able time. Later, after the case was over, the Judge was asked why he didn’t stop it. The judge replied “If an offi­cer gets smart, I let the attor­ney at him. But if the offi­cer keeps his dig­nity, I tell the attor­ney to be civil or there will be hell to pay.”

OTHER PITFALLS

Tac­tics can include eth­i­cally accept­able traps.
Some­times the evi­dence officer’s cred­i­bil­ity can be dam­aged by con­fu­sion or other tac­tics used by the defense. It is the defense attorney’s job to try to dam­age the cred­i­bil­ity of every wit­ness. How­ever, some­times the effec­tive­ness of tes­ti­mony is reduced for rea­sons which have noth­ing to do with truth or accuracy.

Con­fus­ing ques­tions
Attor­neys fre­quently ask ques­tions that are con­fus­ing. If this hap­pens, don’t hes­i­tate to respond, “I don’t under­stand that ques­tion. ” Under no cir­cum­stances should the mean­ing of a ques­tion be guessed at. Often offi­cers hes­i­tate to say they do not under­stand the ques­tion fear­ing embar­rass­ment or look­ing fool­ish. If the offi­cer didn’t under­stand the ques­tion, most likely nei­ther did the jury, so if the attor­ney tries to belit­tle the offi­cer it will usu­ally backfire.

Repeated ques­tions
An attor­ney may try to cause an offi­cer to give an incon­sis­tent answer by ask­ing the same ques­tion sev­eral times. Essen­tially it is the same ques­tion with a lit­tle change in lan­guage. They’re try­ing to get a ‘yes’ answer to a ques­tion which was pre­vi­ously answered ‘no.’ When this hap­pens, and if the DA doesn’t object, let them know you are pay­ing atten­tion. (Say some­thing like, ‘I think you asked that ques­tion earlier.’)

Repeated Answers
An attor­ney may ask a series of ques­tions which, for one rea­son or another, can­not be answered. If this hap­pens, try to avoid giv­ing the same response every time. An offi­cer respond­ing with “I don’t know” or “I don’t remem­ber” to a series of ques­tions may look eva­sive or uncooperative.

Instead, give some thought to each ques­tion and try to respond as directly as pos­si­ble. Instead of “I don’t recall” try vari­a­tions such as “I didn’t notice,” or “I didn’t see that,” or “I wasn’t look­ing at that.”

Sum­ma­riz­ing pre­vi­ous tes­ti­mony
When a defense attor­ney asks a ques­tion sum­ma­riz­ing pre­vi­ous tes­ti­mony be espe­cially alert. “Ear­lier you tes­ti­fied that… ” may con­tain delib­er­ate or neg­li­gent mis­state­ments of your ear­lier tes­ti­mony. If so, and you answer that ques­tion, it may appear that you agree with the attorney’s sum­mary of your tes­ti­mony. Lis­ten care­fully, and if the attor­ney mis­states your tes­ti­mony say, “That is not what I said.” Don’t think, “That’s close enough.” The attor­ney is prob­a­bly just set­ting the trap.

Times and dis­tances
Attor­neys fre­quently ask for esti­mates of the amount of time it took to do some­thing. Don’t guess, your guess may con­flict with other wit­nesses tes­ti­mony result­ing in dam­age to cred­i­bil­ity. Try to fig­ure it out. For exam­ple: ATTY: “How long was the frozen sam­ple kit out of the freezer?”; OFFICER: “Let’s see. After I signed for every­thing, the lab tech brought me the sam­ple. I drove directly to the police sta­tion which is 10 – 12 min­utes from the lab. I went directly to the evi­dence freezer and returned the item to frozen stor­age which takes about 5 – 7 min­utes. I would esti­mate it was out of frozen stor­age for about 15 — 20 min­utes.” Use a sim­i­lar process when asked about distances.

Cross-examination con­cern­ing the accu­racy of prop­erly records
Areas of incon­sis­ten­cies between tes­ti­mony and writ­ten reports are prime tar­gets for defense attor­neys. Incon­sis­ten­cies can appear between tes­ti­mony and prop­erty reports or when tes­ti­mony is given about some­thing which was not included in the orig­i­nal doc­u­men­ta­tion. If this hap­pens, remem­ber to remain calm and not appear defen­sive. If there is an error in your report, admit it. If some­thing was not included, say so. It may be dif­fi­cult to admit a mis­take on the wit­ness stand but it is bet­ter than try­ing to cover it up or mak­ing excuses. It is only human to make a mistake.

If some­thing was omit­ted which turned out to be impor­tant, be hum­ble. “It didn’t seem impor­tant at the time, I guess I should have included it.” Every­one can sym­pa­thize with a mis­take, but not a cover up. If the attor­ney asks why you left the item out, think twice. Say­ing “I didn’t have time to put it in” may give the impres­sion the case is, at least in your opin­ion, unim­por­tant. Be hon­est but word your response care­fully to avoid irri­tat­ing the jury.

“Did you talk to the DA or other police wit­nesses before tes­ti­fy­ing?”
The ques­tion is rou­tinely asked by defense attor­neys. Usu­ally, the pur­pose is to imply the DA and police per­son­nel needed to get “their sto­ries straight.” It is an inef­fec­tive and des­per­ate tac­tic. Pros­e­cu­tors are sup­posed to talk with evi­dence offi­cers (or other police per­son­nel) before going to court, and it is only nat­ural for offi­cers to talk amongst them­selves about work.

Be care­ful of how the attor­ney asks whether you talked “about your tes­ti­mony” or “about how you are going to tes­tify.” A yes answer to the sec­ond ques­tion will make it sound like your tes­ti­mony was rehearsed. One evi­dence offi­cer said “When asked if I talked to the DA or other offi­cer about my tes­ti­mony, I usu­ally say some­thing like, ‘We didn’t talk about how I was going to tes­tify. We talked about the facts of the case. ’ Or ‘The things we talked about are the same things I tes­ti­fied to on direct examination.”

“I don’t know”
If you don’t know the answer to the ques­tion, say so. Do not guess. There is noth­ing wrong with, “I don’t remem­ber” or “I don’t know,” or “I didn’t see it.”

Refresh­ing your mem­ory
If you don’t know the answer to a ques­tion because you sim­ply for­got it, you may be per­mit­ted to review the prop­erty or police reports if you think it will refresh your mem­ory. Do not just start read­ing the report when­ever the answer to a ques­tion might be found there. Instead, ask for per­mis­sion from either the judge or the attor­ney who asked the ques­tion. (“May I refer to the prop­erty report?”)

PLAIN ENGLISH

There is noth­ing that turns off a judge or jury as much as hear­ing an offi­cer using military-type, overly stuffed jar­gon that has become asso­ci­ated with law enforce­ment. The style is char­ac­ter­ized by the use of words or phrases which are overly for­mal in place of sim­ple and direct speech. For exam­ple: “I exited the police vehi­cle,” instead of “I got out of the prop­erty van” or “That is cor­rect” instead of “yes.” Jurors don’t warm up to offi­cers who talk in a strange lan­guage. It comes across as cold, unfeel­ing and a lack of per­son­al­ity. It con­fuses the jurors. If a juror has to con­cen­trate on the words rather then the tes­ti­mony the offi­cer loses all effec­tive­ness. “Police jar­gon is fine for TV and Movies. But when accu­racy is impor­tant, when you want to com­mu­ni­cate with judges and jurors, it’s ter­ri­ble, ” pointed out one pros­e­cu­tor interviewed.

OTHER KEYS TO TESTIFYING
* Appear inter­ested in the ques­tions, as opposed to just say­ing ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in a flat monot­one. Make your tes­ti­mony alive for the jury.
* Don’t lounge in the chair. Sit straight or lean slightly for­ward. It shows you are inter­ested.
* Don’t appear cocky or arro­gant.
* Be thought­ful when answer­ing ques­tions. For exam­ple, if the DA shows you a gun and asks, “Is this the gun you stored into evi­dence?” Don’t just say, ‘yes.’ Look at the gun care­fully. If there is some­thing dis­tinc­tive point it out: “I an see where I ini­tialed the tag on the weapon” or “My sig­na­ture should be on the copy of the chain of cus­tody attached to the weapon … yes, here it is. This is the same gun. ”
* Talk to the jury. Look at them when answer­ing ques­tions. Eye con­tact is impor­tant. Remem­ber, the jurors are the most impor­tant peo­ple in the court­room.
* There is noth­ing wrong with hav­ing a sense of humor on the wit­ness stand. Let the jury know you are human. It’s okay to laugh at your­self.
* It’s okay to be ner­vous. It gives you a com­pet­i­tive edge.
* Don’t worry when you can’t fig­ure out what the defense attor­ney is try­ing to accom­plish on cross exam­i­na­tion. A lot of attor­neys ask mean­ing­less ques­tions. They are doing it for effect or because they don’t know how to cross-examine a wit­ness.
* Wear neat, clean, con­ser­v­a­tive clothes. Men should wear slacks, jack­ets and ties. Women should wear slacks, jack­ets and dress blouses. If you want to be treated like a pro­fes­sional, dress like one.
* If you are off duty, don’t make a spe­cial effort to wear a uni­form. Nice cloth­ing com­bined with effec­tive tes­ti­mony works won­ders.
* Refer to any sus­pects, vic­tims, or other cit­i­zens by name. For exam­ple, “Mr. Jones” or “Mrs.
Smith,” not the defen­dant or the vic­tim. It sounds more pro­fes­sional and unbi­ased.
* Don’t make state­ments that are merely con­clu­sions. Tes­tify to the facts as you know them to be.
* When a court clerk asks you to state your name, just say your name. Don’t give your title. Don’t spell your name until the clerk asks you to do so. (“Evi­dence Offi­cer Roberta Smith, S-M-I-T-H.”) It tends to sound showy and makes a wit­ness appear self-important. 

A recent poll com­pleted by Louis Har­ris indi­cates deep con­cerns for youth and guns. The poll was done after the National Cen­ter for Health Sta­tis­tics reported that in nearly 5,000 Amer­i­can deaths under 20 years of age firearms was the lead­ing killer. The poll revealed that:

59 per­cent of stu­dents said they could get a hand­gun if they wanted to.

One in 10 said they had shot a gun at someone.

11 per­cent said they had been shot at.

One in three said they knew some­one who was killed or hurt by gun­fire. (Blacks youths were twice as likely to know a vic­tim than white youths).

Boys are more likely to be the shooter or the tar­get. Seven times as many boys as girls said they had shot at some­one. Three times as many boys as girls said they had been shot at.

Asians had the great­est fear of gun vio­lence short­en­ing their lives (43 %), fol­lowed by Lati­nos (41 %), blacks (40%) and whites (30%).

In the month pre­ced­ing the sur­vey, 15 % of the school­child­ren said they had car­ried a handgun.

The poll was con­ducted for the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health with funds from the Chicago based Joyce Foun­da­tion. It is part of a project directed at trans­form­ing gun vio­lence from a crim­i­nal issue to a public-health emer­gency. The data was based on a sur­vey of 2,500 chil­dren, ages 10 through 19 years old, attend­ing pub­lic, pri­vate and parochial schools. The mar­gin of error given was plus or minus 3%. § 

Leg­is­la­tion by State 

ASSAULT WEAPONS:

* Cal­i­for­nia (pre­vi­ously banned assault weapons) is con­sid­er­ing a ban on large-capacity mag­a­zine clips.
* Con­necti­cut recen t1 y became the fourth state to ban assault weapons. (Cal­i­for­nia, Hawaii and New Jer­sey were the first three. New Jer­sey recently upheld its 1990 assault weapons ban.)
* New York is con­sid­er­ing a ban on semi­au­to­matic assault weapons.
* Min­nesota extended the seven-day wait­ing period to cover assault weapons. The exten­sion makes gun own­ers liable for neg­li­gently stored firearms. 

HAND GUN LEGISLATION: 

* Arkansas beat back an attempt to allow cit­i­zens to carry con­cealed weapons.
* Indi­ana blocked a pre-exemption bill that, if passed, would wipe out all local gun-control laws.
* Mis­souri fought off efforts to per­mit cit­i­zens to carry con­cealed weapons.
* Ohio is con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion for a seven-day wait­ing period prior to the pur­chase of a hand­gun.
* Texas nar­rowly defeated a bill that would allow cit­i­zens to carry con­cealed weapons.
* Vir­ginia lim­ited hand­gun pur­chases to one per month; pro­hib­ited minors from pos­sess­ing a gun and banned “street sweeper” shotguns.