Standing falsely accused of felony assault in the severe beating of a man in a bar the video surveillance footage from Johnny’s Hall of Fame cleared the one man and now sends Des Moines Police looking for another man. The defense lawyer hired a private investigator that obtained the footage from the tavern. After police and prosecutors watched the video tape charges against the accused were dropped. Instead of accusing the wrong man they now are looking for a cage fighter. Watch the video to see how impressive this kind of evidence is in providing the defendant is the wrong guy. See Video Clears Man In Runner’s Beating Case, KCCI, Cynthia Fodor

Then there is a recent assault case at the Ankeny Wal-Mart. Police report two woman assaulted a female security guard at the Ankeny Walmart store at 1002 SE National Avenue about 4:00 pm, they don’t report on what day. What’s interesting is the surveillance store footage has a very clear picture of the two woman. See KCCI’s story, Do You Recognize These Women? Of course a photographs of customers is a long way from proving these are the same people who assaulted the guard, but it demonstrates that whenever there is the accusation of criminal activity the first line of offense and defense may be the surveillance cameras. 

Surveillance of people involved in a law suit for personal injury has been around as long as there have been video cameras. The difference between recording a person claiming injury and those in this article has to do with who is doing the surveillance and for what purpose. In each of these instances the camera is not placed by a party to a lawsuit but by a third party for premise liability purposes. The first is a bar and the second a department store. The focus is not insurance fraud but criminal activity in a place of business.

Whether it’s a criminal case, a car accident or a slip-n-fall case, attorney’s need to visit the scene and look around for what may be the best witness money can find. The same can be said of those accused of a crime. Go to the scene and look around to see if there are surveillance cameras present. If so tell your lawyer and allow them to obtain the evidence. 

The challenge with video surveillance footage in a digital age will be quality of the images shown, the chain of custody and spoliation of evidence. Frost & Sullivan have an interesting white paper on the subject. See Frost & Sullivan, Using Video Surveillance As Evidence, Capturing And Storing The Best Video For Evidence. What I find interesting about this white paper is the expectation of protection argument being suggested and how that might impact retailers whose cameras provide poor quality making the evidence unreliable and therefore not admissible. Why have the camera and create an expectation of protection when what the camera produces is useless? Another reason why this subject is timely is the growing use of traffic ticket surveillance cameras in Cities across the United States. (The Problem With Legacy Surveillance Systems)

These cameras will provide evidence for many kinds of cases and I'm guessing there will be a push to make the video public with its posting on the Internet. 

Resources:

• Video Surveillance Evidence: Are Digital Copies Admissible, Pursuit Magazine
• Court Allows Defendant to Rely on Surveillance Evidence
• Use of Video Surveillance Evidence to Support Employee Discipline, Maiello Brungo & Maiello, Attorneys discussing collective bargaining agreements and how those agreements treat surveillance of employees. See Brewers & Maltsters, Local Union #6 et. al. vs Anheuser-Busch, Inc.,  2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 13292 (D.C. Cir., 2005)
• BC Injury Law And ICBC Claims Blog,
• The Documentalist, Admissability (sic) of Digital Data in the Court Room Outside of the US
• Prosecutor: Surveillance footage no help in solving case of heroin missing from evidence locker, Chicago Tribune, placement of the camera is important because in this case someone parked a food delivery truck so it blocked the lone surveillance camera’s view of the evidence locker allowing 3 kilos of heroin to be removed.