Indeed, if you don't consider the criminal justice process covered by the legislation previously referred to, I don't see why the logical conclusion wouldn't be that you should be charging every judge that has been passed images for viewing with possession and distribution, the same for the court usher, and members of the jury who passed it on, the officer/expert who passed it to the usher, and so on and so forth.
IMHO, too often we are requested to produce material because 'the Judge has ordered it' and that is hearsay unless you have a 'scrappy piece of paper' to prove so. To produce said material on hearsay could land you in trouble and we usually resist doing so without good reason.
I have recently heard of a case where such a request was made by a Judge who was blind and the CPS never questioned how such a disclosure could assist the Court!
In the UK the grading system alongside agreed statements should be enough to negate the need for such material being reproduced thereby avoiding unnecessary trauma for the Jury etc.
I have witnessed a Jury being discharged when one lady Juror learned of the case matter and was very upset at having to deal with such material. We in the job deal with this stuff on a regular basis and should be given due respect for doing so. However, it is all too common for such requests to be made and 'vengeful fury' borne down upon those who dare question the learned Judge.
Mr Crute does not deserve to be threatened with punishment for being a responsible professional and should instead be commended for his attempts to prevent those depicted in the images from being abused over and over as a result of these depictions being disseminated unnecessarily within the judicial system.
I would assume that no protocols are in place for such material to be destroyed after a case concludes and that somewhere in an archive, hardcopy prints of such material relating to such cases are waiting to be re-discovered and possibly re-distributed. Who to blame then?
Ergo, requesting of a court order is wholly unnecessary.
Totally agree.
too often we are requested to produce material because 'the Judge has ordered it' and that is hearsay unless you have a 'scrappy piece of paper' to prove so
Err, no. When a Judge orders it in his/her open Court, it is not hearsay but a matter of public record.
For the record (although Jonathan is correct in pointing out that MoUs are not the documents being debated here), I have signed Kent's MoU several times and IMHO both Kent Computer Crime Unit and Chris Crute are a credit to our community.
too often we are requested to produce material because 'the Judge has ordered it' and that is hearsay unless you have a 'scrappy piece of paper' to prove so
Err, no. When a Judge orders it in his/her open Court, it is not hearsay but a matter of public record.
I stand corrected, however I was trying to explain that from the perspective of the analyst being asked to produce the material, any request without written verification may be considered unauditable, unreliable and is similar to hearsay from the analysts point of view.
That the request was made in open court and is therefore on public record, may not satisfy the local working directives of the law enforcement agency. However the officer in charge (OIC) simply has to make this request to the analyst - in an email for example - and this should overide any local directives as the OIC has ultimate responsibility for the case.
What if the analyst is not in the court to listen to the judge?
Is the analyst then required to research the court records to see if the judge uttered the words?
Or just take the word of the requester that the judge did indeed utter them?
Or, is it documentation on a flimsy paper is okay if the analyst is not in court, but not okay if he is within earshot of the judge?
jhup - Get a copy of the judges orders from the court, it'll be recorded by the court. When having to perform actions in a previous case (involving CP), that's what I asked for (when wanting to refresh myself at a later date on the exact wording of what the judge ordered). Admittedly I was in court at the original time and just wanting to refresh my memory of the exact terms, but even if I wasn't I the same would apply really.
Now if you're not going to trust what the CPS/OIC send over, then you could say the same of any court order you got sent from them.
Why should I get it? Why not the requester provide me with the appropriate papers, or the copy of the judges orders?
On whom is the onus to provide an acceptable request to the custodian of the material?
It is a very slippery slope when the custodian (in this case the examiner) is asked to research, find, and further document the request. . .
I do not know the whole story of this case, but this is how I imagine it went down -
[In court, examiner, requester, judge]
[judge] "give the requester the data"
[in examiners office]
[requester] "give me the data"
[examiner] "can I get the flimsy paper, please?"
[requester]" bahahaha!"
[requester runs crying to judge]
[in court again, examiner, requester, judge]
[judge, while consoling weeping requester]" you, you evil monster! You did not give him his CP! Give it to him or I jail you!"
[examiner] "sir, yes sir. I mean ma'am."
Okay, maybe I am adding a bit to it mrgreen
(my emphasis)
jhup - Get a copy of the judges orders from the court, it'll be recorded by the court. When having to perform actions in a previous case (involving CP), that's what I asked for (when wanting to refresh myself at a later date on the exact wording of what the judge ordered). Admittedly I was in court at the original time and just wanting to refresh my memory of the exact terms, but even if I wasn't I the same would apply really.
Now if you're not going to trust what the CPS/OIC send over, then you could say the same of any court order you got sent from them.
jhup
I expect that other than the requester the examiners counsel and the rest of the team was there as well and could verify that the request was indeed made as stated. In my experience there is almost invariably a member of the police case team there who could veriify what was requested and ordered.
It's not up to the 'requester' to provide you papers (at least as far as i'm aware). The judge has ordered you to do something (provide entity X with Y). So who requested it is irrelevant surely, you've been ordered to do it by a judge….(and as Paul says, you could verify it with a number of people if you were in any doubt as to the authenticity of the orders for some reason).
I think the point was that if you werent at court and assuming that nobody was from the police side of the case (unlikely I know) that you would require some paper work as you were not there to recieve that order and it wouldnt have been given to you specifically either, it would likely have been to CPS.
At the end of the day its all well and good saying you dont need a piece of paper to release these images, but as most people in the public sector know, when brown stuff hits the fan that paperwork keeps you in your job. Its a sad state of affairs but that doesnt change reality.