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Thursday, March 31, 2005
Ind. Law - Evidence management varies
"Evidence management varies: Small towns often lack secure facilities for spoils of crime" is the headline to a story today in the South Bend Tribune by Laura Steele. Some quotes from the beginning of the piece:
Not all small police agencies have the means to properly safeguard seized evidence, local town marshals say.Although some departments call their evidence management capabilities state-of-the-art, most agree they are only "sufficiently adequate."
That gap exists, they say, because although state law mandates all seized evidence to be "securely held" during an investigation, it does not outline an exact procedure as to how to do that.
The issue has arisen after last week's arrest of Roseland Town Marshal D. Michael Swanson, who police say stole confiscated drug money stored in the town's safe.
Scott Mellinger, executive director of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, said town marshals are trained to handle evidence in the same way as officers from larger departments.
"We talk about the chain of custody and the necessity to document who might have been in possession of evidence," Mellinger said. Marshals are then encouraged to implement a written evidence policy for their department, either with a template or on their own.
"But what happens too many times is a smaller agency head will make the assumption that it won't happen here," he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 31, 2005 11:15 AM
Posted to Indiana Law