Police Body Camera Videos as Evidence

The Washington Post published this interesting piece yesterday about the use of police body camera video as evidence in court, a phenomenon that will become increasingly common as more and more police agencies adopt body cameras.

Overall this appears to be a positive development, but there will be growing pains as departments develop protocols to preserve and produce camera footage during discovery.  For an earlier post noting the growing pains with respect to open records request, see here.

Indeed, the Post article quotes the DC US Attorney, stating:

“Our biggest concern with respect to this issue is that in order for body cameras to work effectively in the courtroom, it will be imperative for the city to devote significant resources to effectively preserve, process and produce the extraordinary volume of recordings generated by the cameras so that the government can uphold its obligations to provide these materials to criminal defendants.”

Lots of evidentiary implications as well. 

For example, doesn’t the conspicuous  presence of a police body camera make a citizen’s otherwise spontaneous utterance more likely to be deemed “testimonial” and therefore inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause?