I doubt that Australia, being a Common Law jurisdiction, like Canada, the US and England, would be any different than you described, Mark.
Basically, ~any~ image is "admissable"; how likely it is that it's been manipulated or otherwise altered goes to the weight of that evidence, not it's admissability as evidence or as an exhibit. Even drawings or sketches are admissable.
(Bucky, Dan Matyola, and any other lawyers out there, please jump in and correct me if I'm wrong - I've been out of the loop a long time now...).
Normally, if it's a police photo, the cop who took the photo is on the stand, and he establishes "the chain" of handling. Under oath he says that he took the photo, he took the film out of the camera, brought the film to the cop lab, picked up the negs and prints, that the neg hasn't to his knowledge been altered, that the print is an accurate unaltered one, and that the print is a true and real representation of the scene that he photographed (there's some "magic words" that they usually use, but these are close enough...).
I would imagine that for digital, the same scenario would be played out. As long as they aren't altered, and the photographer says they represent his recollection of the scene photographed, digital would, imho, be admissable.
Remember, the vast majority of photographs go inot evidence on consent. If they're accurate, and unaltered, there's no use in the defence keeping them out. They can save a lot of time describing the minutae of a crime scene, and make examination in chief (I think the Americans call it "direct examination"?) and cross-examination much more efficient and effective.
What the CNN article that Steve linked to seemed to be more about is manipulation of images after the fact: computer "enhancement" of prints, of fuzzy images, that sort of thing. That's been going on for years, and really can be done to film sourced images just as much as digital. I think that's a different issue.
But, what do I know?
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: Mark Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: film vs digital for history Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 05:56:23 -0500
"John Coyle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Interesting that the justice system should now be questioning the move to
>digital for evidence. For years, I understood that a (film-based)
>photograph would not be admitted unless the negative was also available to
>support any print offered to the court as part of an argument, or that an
>affidavit was sworn as to it's genuineness.
That's not true in the U.S. Any photo admitted as evidence is only as good as the testimony of the person who took it (and who swears under oath that the photo is an accurate representation of what it's intended to depict). I've prepared photos to be presented in court. In one case, some were digital capture and some were shot on film. ALL were printed digitally on my Epson 1270. Neither the judge or attorneys even *asked* how the photos were taken (or if slides/negatives or RAW files were available). They just wanted the expert witness who took them to swear that they were accurate.
-- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/photos&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
