It seems from what I've read that this event goes to `chain of custody`, and by nicicacity invalidates ALL digital evidence for EVERY case handled by this police office unless provenance can be reliably established beyond all doubt, and that provenance can be proven not to effect 'original' copies in this or other cases.
It is a catastrophic failure of procedure, that invalidates this, and possibly all copies of this evidence causing it to be judged inadmissible.
From wikipedia[1]:
When evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to prevent tampering or contamination. The idea behind recording the chain of custody is to establish that the alleged evidence is in fact related to the alleged crime, rather than having, for example, been “planted” fraudulently to make someone appear guilty.
Regarding other comments in this thread about law enforcement being held to a higher standard, they would be. The higher standard is that when they fail to follow proper procedure like this, the effect is the evidence (and often the entire case) is summerly dismissed, and the defendant cannot be tried again for the same crime. the entire US legal system has this built in bias. Whereas a defendant in a similar position of supplying discovery documents would not be held to the same standard risking summery judgement, and might be able to provide replacement copies for discovery, and continue with the definse more or less normally.
It is a catastrophic failure of procedure, that invalidates this, and possibly all copies of this evidence causing it to be judged inadmissible.
From wikipedia[1]: When evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to prevent tampering or contamination. The idea behind recording the chain of custody is to establish that the alleged evidence is in fact related to the alleged crime, rather than having, for example, been “planted” fraudulently to make someone appear guilty.
Regarding other comments in this thread about law enforcement being held to a higher standard, they would be. The higher standard is that when they fail to follow proper procedure like this, the effect is the evidence (and often the entire case) is summerly dismissed, and the defendant cannot be tried again for the same crime. the entire US legal system has this built in bias. Whereas a defendant in a similar position of supplying discovery documents would not be held to the same standard risking summery judgement, and might be able to provide replacement copies for discovery, and continue with the definse more or less normally.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_custody