Question about possible destruction of evidence?

[elkstan]

Your system doesn't fast forward?

Even with fast forward it’s multiple cameras plus the distance. It doesn’t matter anyway though I’m already out of town.

 

[adjusterjack]

No, there’s way too much to look through. I probably wouldn’t get through it all before it got deleted unless I save it to a different storage device. I would rather avoid doing that for obvious reason.

Then let it go and stop kvetching.

 

[elkstan]

Then let it go and stop kvetching.

Dude, I’m just answering the questions people asked.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state? California


My neighbors house was broken into sometime in the past week when she was out of town. She left me a message about it and said the police are going to contact me about getting the footage from my security camera that faces her property. They haven’t contacted me yet.

The problem is over the past couple days I have been doing a project out front that is not strictly legal. Which is why I was doing it while my neighbor was out of town. I had stupidly not thought of turning off the cameras before I started this project.

So obviously I don’t want the police to see me doing this project. My security cameras only keep the past 72 hours though. After that it starts recording over itself. So the guy breaking into her house may have also been recorded over already. If not though he will for sure be recorded over by Sunday.

I suppose I’m just want to know if I could get in trouble for destruction of evidence or something if I just let the process happen and do nothing to stop it. Also what exactly are my obligations for responding to the police when/if they do contact me. How soon would I have to reply. What would happen if let’s say I went out of town early tomorrow morning for a weekend camping trip or something and they couldn’t get ahold of me.

I believe you are concerned about “spoliation of evidence” should you not preserve the video from your surveillance camera after being notified its use might be necessary as evidence in a criminal case, correct?

The following California Court of Appeals Opinion goes over spoliation of evidence and when a duty to preserve evidence exists:

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/E078673A.DOCX#:~:text=One serious form of discovery,California (2011) 201 Cal.

I hope you had nothing to do with the break in at your neighbor’s house.