Tagging & Labelling Of Evidence

Once evidence has been placed into bags it must be tagged and labelled. These tags should include the following details; the name of the scenes of crime officer who collected the evidence, the case number relating to the crime scene the evidence came from and also the exhibits number of the evidence. The ‘tags’ or criminal justice act labels can be attached to an evidence bag, but quite often, especially in the case of the plastic evidence bags there are spaces to write the information onto the bags themselves. The tags or labels also contain areas that have to be filled in by officers who handle the evidence, after it has been taken from the crime scene. This is called the chain of custody and is an effective measure in place to allow for evidence to be traced back from person to person all the way back to the original scenes of crime officer who collected the evidence at the crime scene. The tags and labels are also effective as they allow for evidence to be clearly marked showing where it came from and where it should be going to – such as which forensic lab it is to be analysed it. This helps to remove the chances of evidence getting lost or placed with other evidence not related to the case and therefore ending up at the wrong forensics lab.

Within the OJ Simpson case there were errors that can be identified within the procedure of tagging and labelling evidence collected in relation to the murders that occurred. Firstly blood that was taken as a sample from OJ Simpson to be used for comparison against blood collected at the crime scene was left unlabelled and no police documents were filled out regarding the amount of blood taken. This error proved detrimental further on in the case when the medical personnel who took the blood was asked how much they had taken, at the trial in court. They were only able to guess that it must be around 8ml, as this is the amount normally taken in a blood test, however only 6.5ml was in the test tube when it arrived at the forensics lab for analysis. This error in the labelling procedure led to the defence to be able to argue that the missing blood must have been planted at the scene to frame OJ Simpson. This was one of the main arguments that were believed to have helped Simpson be acquitted of the murders.

Another error in the labelling of evidence was that blood evidence taken from the scene was not labelled meaning that later on in the investigation it was impossible for forensic scientists and investigators to tell where the tested blood has actually come from in regards to the scene. This therefore gave the jury the impression that sloppy collection of evidence occurred.