Free practice test

ISP Directives

An officer collects a firearm from a scene, places it in an evidence bag, and logs it into the property system three hours later without noting who had custody of it during the intervening period. Under generally accepted evidence-handling practice, what is the defect from a chain-of-custody standpoint?

• AThe three-hour delay is not important here, since chain of custody concerns only where an item is ultimately stored rather than who handled it
• BThe gap leaves an unaccounted period of custody, which a chain-of-custody record must eliminate by documenting who held the item throughout
• CThere is no real defect, since chain of custody starts to matter once an item has been formally logged into the property system
• DThe defect is packaging the firearm in a bag at all, since firearms should stay unpackaged in an officer's hands until they are logged