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It?s nice you know me. Then you would know I work closely with the local law enforcement every day and I see the true side of the law rather than what a classroom textbook says. Of the thousands of cases I have seen, the evidence chain or evidence tampering have never been an issue. It's nice that people in college take one class and think they are an expert on a subject. Nothing replaces the real world experiences one can learn from.
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Your right, I don't know you, but I do know when people are spouting off stuff they know nothing about. I don't care whether you "work closely" with law enforcement or not, the fact of the matter is that rule 901 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which all federal courts follow, REQUIRE a chain of custody to be established. If you don't beleive me, go read the rule and a little bit about what it requires!
Further, if chain of custody has never been an issue in the cases you have been involved with, its probably because: a) You have seen a lot of civil or criminal cases based on state law in a state that has not adopted the federal rules of evidence; b) you have seen a lot of non-drug cases; or c) the government in the cases you "worked closely" with law enforcement on did its job in maintaining the chain and the prosecutor established it in a motione in limine (pre-trial motion), which means you would probably never see it. Just because its not "argued" in the courtroom, however, does not mean it is not a requirement or that it is something to be laughed at. Indeed, I've read at least 20 cases this semester where drug charges were thrown out because of a failure to properly establish chain of custody of drug paraphanalia. Moreover, as I mentioned before, my professor is a federal judge. He has been on the bench for almost 20 years now. So if he says that chain of custody must be strictly maintained in drug cases and that defense attorneys should "drive a truck " through any gaps, I'm going to listen to him. No offense, but the opinion of a Federal Judge regarding the Federal Rules of Evidence carries a lot more weight with me then someone who "has worked closely" with law enforcement.
And by the way, I never purported to say I was an expert in this stuff. However, I DO know a bit about the subject and I thought my comments would be helpful, especially considering that they were directed to an argument that most people don't even realize the have.
Oh, by the way, my "classroom textbook" is a copy of the Federal Rules of Evidence with advisory committee notes and THE CASELAW...