RCMP Staff Sgt. Jerry Nutbrown brings you behind the scenes with a series of columns taking you behind police work and how it’s done in our community. If you have a question you think needs to be answered in Behind the Bison, send it to admin@borderpulse.ca and we will be sure to share it with him.
I am fairly certain that most people have heard about evidence when it comes to criminal proceedings and law enforcement actions. However, evidence is also presented in various other venues and is held by other agencies, businesses, individuals, etc. A parent may possess evidence that their 15-year-old had snuck out of the house during the night, but this isn’t what I am going to write about today so all you 15-year-olds can breathe easy.
A quick note on evidence, not all evidence police seek is something you can hold or see. The information in statements obtained from those involved, including witnesses, is considered evidence. People provide information and this can make its way to court where a judge will weigh the credibility of the person and the information, or testimony, they provide. If the initial information provided to police is contrary to what they may provide to a court, a judge has to decide what to believe and what weight to give that evidence.
Besides testimony, we most often deal with physical exhibits which include video recordings on some type of storage device. Some items may be evidence themselves such as a knife or firearm, but they may also hold evidence on them such as fingerprints or DNA.
Sometimes the lack of evidence may still be evidence. The lack of footprints at a scene with fresh snowfall in certain areas would be evidence showing that no one walked there. Or areas of a house at a residential break and enter where there is no damage may indicate where entry was not made. There are many other things similar to these examples in which we may consider evidence because of the lack of other evidence.
Most often evidence is pretty typical, damage done by someone, a firearm used in an offence or video recordings showing a crime being committed. At other times evidence can be unusual or so large that we cannot seize it so we document it as best we can and present what we collect as evidence in a court. An example would be a house.
When we seize items, they typically become an exhibit, and we then handle them in certain ways either as required by law or specific to the nature of the exhibit. Drug exhibits are handled very specifically due to the risk they pose and because we need to take and send samples to a lab for analysis.
A key legal requirement of exhibits is the reporting of their seizure to a judge and the documented continuity. Items seized with or without a warrant are to be reported to a judge on a specific form. If there are charges and the matter proceeds to court, police are obligated to prove the continuity of the exhibits which is accounting for exactly who possessed them and where they were stored.
There are many legal rules for evidence which makes this a high-risk area of policing as any mishandling can result in serious consequences.
Read more: Behind the Bison: Inside the Lloydminster Detachment
