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From: oliver@johnson.cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Manipulation of Courtroom Evidence
Keywords: video graphics computer alter evidence
Message-ID: <12098@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 16 Feb 90 20:17:11 GMT
References: <102034@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: oliver@johnson.cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 83

In article <102034@pyramid.pyramid.com> wniren@pyrtech (Walter Nirenberg) writes:
>
>Photos and videos are still admissable as courtroom evidence in most
>situations.  However, with these new "advances", can we trust these
>forms any more?  Think of the impact..a criminal could possibly be
>let loose based on a photo showing someone else perpetrating the crime.
>Newspapers and TV networks could change what the public sees.  We're
>talking about a tremendous potential for "disinformation" to quote
>our wonderful government (by the way, isn't that a fancy word to mean
>"to lie"?).
>



I am a forensic pathologist, and have acted as an expert witness in 
numerous trials.  I almost always bring photos along with me, which
counsel uses as evidence. 

As far as I know, photographic evidence that *I* am involved with,
and all the photographic evidence that I have ever seen admitted
from other scene investigators has always been admitted only on the
conditions that

1) It can be shown that the photo is a "true and accurate representation,"
of what was there, and

2) It has usefulness in explaining my or some other investigator's
testimony, e.g. it is not admitted as evidence in and of itself.


Your question is about problem (1).  The way this is almost always done
is for the person who took the photo to be on the stand and testify
thay this is, indeed, a true and accurate representation.  Thus, if
I took the photo, then I would be the one who did the testifying that
the photo is not tampered with.  

The tampering question is an old one for us folk who do autopsies, 
but the question was of tampering with the body rather than with
the photo.  For instance, let's say that John Doe has been shot in the
stomach.  John survives long enough to get to a hospital, where 
they open his abdomen to try and close off the bleeding arteries, but
he dies anyway.

Joe's body comes to the morgue with this itty-bitty hole in the belly,
and a huge old surgical wound running right through it.  Defense will
often get any photographs of the wound ruled inadmissible because 
of the gross looking surgical wound -- the judge will rule that the
jury will react viscerally (no pun intended) to the large wound,
rather than intellectually to the evidence of the bullet wound.
I have also had photos ruled out because there was too much free blood.
The wound wasn't cleaned (I often take one shot uncleaned and one
cleaned), and bloody wounds often look much larger than they are,
expecially in photos.  I have also had one ruled out because
skin traction caused a knife wound to gape open, again making
it appear larger, in some sense, than it really was.

Thus, when I take a morgue shot, I often spend a lot of time carefully
draping towels, arranging the body, etc. to hide any extraneous stuff 
in order to make my photos of the wound admissible.  Then, when I get 
on the stand, I testify that the photo is a true and accurate 
representation, with the exception of whatever modifications I have made.

I suspect that digitization problems will be handled the same way.
Since photographic evidence is almost always admitted only as an
"illustration" of personal testimony, it will ultimately be admissible 
to modify a photo to "clean up" extraneous stuff, as long as somebody 
is there to testify that the stuff appropriate to the case is true and 
accurate.  Haggling over what consitutes "cleaning up" and what 
should be left in is something that counsel should get settled 
during disclosure.  As far as the question of being able to 
sneak in a modified photo, this has always been a possibility and 
this is why 1) it is usually admitted only as "illustrative" evidence, and
2) there has to be someone there to hang for perjury.  
The precedents are pretty much there already.


Now, the ease of proving perjury might be made very much more difficult.
But that is a different question.


Bill Oliver