Not Just a Technical Requirement

In keeping with my recent trend of stealing from other blogs, here is an excellent but really eggheaded blog from Prof. Friedman at http://confrontationright.blogspot.com/ on chain-of-custody and confrontation. Here's the teaser:

Here I will write about the chain of custody, products of a machine, who must testify, and other related topics.

Chain of custody is not a technical requirement that should be belittled as a mere technicality. The chain is part of the requirement of authentication, which is that the proponent demonstrate that a piece of evidence is what its proponent claim it to be. Absent authentication, the evidence has no substantial probative value, because its connection to the case has not been demonstrated.

All right, not really the most legally sexy topic, but this is good core stuff, especially if you are dealing with DNA, breath tests, immigration records, or other data produced by machinery or computer-generated searches.
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