CELLPHONE PHOTOS, REAL-LIFE RED HERRINGS, AND COURTHOUSE WAITING ROOMS - 089

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This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, cell phone photos, real life, red herrings, and courthouse waiting rooms. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Happy Mother's Day and welcome to episode number 89 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about detectives using their cell phones to take evidentiary photographs, whether real life criminals leave red herrings and what do they call courthouse waiting rooms?

Big thank yous to my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjamieson.com, Larry Keaton, Vickie Tharp of vickytharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com, Lynn Vitale, Marco Carocari of marcocarocari.com and Robert Mendenhall of robertjmendenhall.com for their support along with my silver cufflink and coffee club patrons. You can find links to all of the Bureau's patrons in the show notes at writersdetective.com/89.

This month's Patreon deposit for May, 2020 just hit my account and 100% of that money has been donated to Masks For Docs to provide PPE to those on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have funds you'd like to donate to Masks For Docs or PPE, you'd like to get to those who need it most or you're a first responder or medical professional that's in immediate need of PPE, go to masksfordocs.com right now. And to learn more about patronage through Patreon, go to writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

I hope you're having a great Mother's Day despite having to shelter in place and if you're feeling a bit out of touch, come join us in the Writer's Detective Facebook group. The fastest way to get to the group is by going to writersdetectivebureau.com/facebook and that will redirect you straight to the Facebook group. In fact, I pulled this week's first question right from there.

Marcia Smart asked this in the Facebook group. "When executing a search warrant are the police usually the ones who take photos using their phones of things they find or do they need to bring along an official photographer from the department? Is that still necessary? This is for Chicago PD." While I'm not sure of Chicago PD's policy, I can tell you that the vast majority of the search warrants I've served did not involve the department photographer.

We, the detectives, did the photography and the exception for this was in homicide scenes. But again, that's more about processing a crime scene after obtaining a Mincey warrant and less about your typical search warrant. Where I work, our "department photographer" is one of a number of forensics personnel that are trained in crime scene photography techniques, which begs the question, what are those techniques?

First, it's having a plan to capture everything about the scene, whether that's a crime scene or a search warrant location. The forensics unit photographers that I've worked with start by photographing each room by standing in a corner of the room and shooting the entire room from that vantage point and then they repeat that process for every corner of the room and they do that for each room in the building. Then they will take establishing shots of where an evidence item was located, and by establishing shot, I mean if the gun is found in the nightstand, then they will start in the doorway of the bedroom and take a shot of the bed and the nightstand and the overall room. And then they will get a closer shot of the nightstand and then another shot of the gun in situ and then an even closer shot of the gun once it's been removed from the nightstand and rendered safe.

Those closeup shots either in situ or posed just prior to being placed in an evidence bag may be photographed with a placard that has a ruler printed on it along with some black and white circles. The ruler and circles are used for when we are blowing up the photo to life-size, like when we're going to present it to a jury. And it ensures that a one-to-one ratio is literally one inch in the photo to one inch in real life. And those little circles, the black and white circles help indicate whether the photo was taken directly perpendicular to the evidence item, which the photographer will attempt to do when taking evidence photos by being directly above the evidence object.

That placard is also going to have the case number written on it, the date and time this part of the investigation started. So in this case, the time the search warrant was served and the name and badge number of the investigator handling the case. I should mention that photos of these placards will be the very first and very last photos the photographer takes while at the scene, regardless of whether those placards were actually used during the photo documentation of the scene and the evidence. And the reason we start and end with the placard is so when they take the memory card or back in the day, the roll of film, back to the lab, there is no question as to which case or which scene these photos were from because the photos are book-ended with the information on the placard.

The photographers are also trained well in the case of a night time crime scene or anywhere especially dark. They're trained to paint the scene with light to capture the whole scene and what this means is essentially locking the shutter on the camera open and then moving around inside the shot with a light to eliminate all the nooks and crannies. And then the end result is a bright and vibrant photo of the entire area and the person holding the light will not appear in the shot because of how long the shutter remains open compared to how long the person was in the scene at that location. I know there are actual photographers listening right now and they're pulling their hair out because of my butchered explanation of that technique, but I hope you get the gist of both the technique and then I'm not an actual professional photographer.

But I've mentioned numerous times on this podcast that authoring search warrants is the bread and butter stuff of detective work. It is what we do and if you're constantly writing and serving search warrants, you're going to have a pretty good handle on the things you need to bring with you when serving said search warrant. Every detective, at least where I work, has a search warrant kit in their car. This is a briefcase or a bag or even a rolling toolbox that has everything you need to serve a search warrant. Your camera, a box of latex gloves, paper bags, plastic bags of varying sizes, sharps containers for when you seize needles or knives, urine sample cups because crime and drug users go hand in hand. Cardboard boxes for booking, unloaded firearms, and then of course all of the paperwork.

The property sheet that serves as an inventory or receipt of what has taken the search warrant, return paperwork and then of course all the paperwork you need for arresting somebody like the booking form for the jail or the probable cause statement for the judge to review. I know I'm forgetting stuff. The tape we use the seal the evidence bags. I'm sure there's more but you get the idea. I carried a couple of forceps for collecting stuff you really didn't want to touch even with gloves on and I carry a lockpick set to get into things like lockers and toolboxes and she sheds and other locked rooms. And that doesn't even mention the entry tools we use for dynamic entries into locations. Can you tell that I worked in vice and narcs?

Entry tools means a ram for knocking in a door or a pair of bolt cutters for cutting padlocks and a Halligan tool, which we also call a pic, which we totally stole from the fire service. It's essentially a long pry bar with a fork and designed to be pounded into a door jam on doors that open outward and then pried to pop that door open, which is damn near every mobile home or RV I've ever seen. And it works on those metal security screen doors as well.

Anyway, as long as you are photo documenting what you find during a search warrant, you'll be good to go even if you don't have an official department photographer with you. But I should mention that using a cell phone to capture a picture rather than an actual camera where you're booking the camera's memory card is evidence or you have some sort of department protocol where the memory card is uploaded to a department's photo repository. But if you're using a cell phone to take official photos, you're running the risk of having that entire phone brought in as evidence or at least brought in as part of the discovery process. Some agencies allow for it, others don't as far as using a department cell phone for taking photos, but I've always personally used the camera for work photos and not a cell phone.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson of sarahhinlickywilson.com writes, "Hello, I discovered your podcast through your interview with Joanna Penn like so many others have and since then I've binged my way through all the episodes." Thanks. "Fascinating. I have an amateur detective novel collecting dust in my files and now I think I'll bring it back to the light of day and try again." That's awesome. "But till then I have a question that is maybe too general for your podcast, but you may enjoy answering it. I cut my teeth on the golden age of detective fiction, especially Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie. One of the pleasures of the novels is the extremely intricate and elaborate false trail laid by the villain. What I'm wondering is have you as a working cop ever actually encountered such elaborate webs of deception or are most murders impulsive and the murderers flee and lie in a panic without such careful forethought? As Peter Wimsey pointed out, we actually have no idea how many clever murderers have covered their trail successfully, but I'm curious to hear your take on the matter. Thanks and keep up the great work."

First of all, wow. Thanks for bingeing the backlist. That's a lot of listening time, but I guess it's been a pretty long quarantine for most of you guys. Being a first responder I still have to go to work, so it hasn't really dawned on me just how long this safer at home thing has been going on. Anyway, thank you for the question, Sarah. The vast majority of the crimes I've investigated have been pretty straightforward and yes, there's no way for me to know if anyone got one over on me. But like you said, we don't know what we don't know. Most cops will tell you we only catch the dumb ones and while that's pretty much true for working the street, we detectives like to think we catch some of the smart ones too.

The most common type of deception is what I call the SODDI Defense, S-O-D-D-I, Some Other Dude Did It. It wasn't me. It was the one armed man. Someone broke in and did this. It wasn't me. Those are often pretty easy to figure out usually because most violent crime is committed by someone they know or live with statistically speaking. And there's usually an aspect to the crime and alibi that the suspect didn't or couldn't mitigate. There was one case I worked though where the suspect did some elaborate things to confuse our investigation. There was some graffiti left at the crime scene that pointed toward a particular hate group, which was a total diversion and he went so far as to plant evidence for law enforcement defined in an entirely different part of California.

I'm not sure that he was trying to place red herrings as to his identity so much as he was enjoying the thought of messing with the investigators by putting them on a wild goose chase. We were able to identify him and catch him as a result of a string of crimes he committed, and I know this all sounds kind of vague, but I kind of have to keep it that way, so I apologize for that.

But in reality that really elaborate trail of deception actually increases the likelihood of us figuring out the true culprit. There are many more touch points between the suspect and the things the detectives are finding. So as a literary device, it is great fun to read and see through the eyes of the cunning master detective as she or he figures out the deception and unravels the mystery. But in real life, the more effort you put into framing someone else, that's more effort we can stumble upon. That's time in Mr. Suspect's day that he can't account for when a detective has him in an interview room. And through cell phones and internet usage and surveillance cameras or ringing doorbells, credit card transactions, witnesses at home and work and in the neighborhood and Facebook and Instagram and all the other things, it's harder than ever to not be tracked somehow or some way, especially if you're trying to establish a really elaborate alibi or framing.

Oh, and that doesn't even begin to address the concept of motive. And if it's for any kind of personal gain, then your suspect is going to have to hide that too. You are going to be far more likely to get away with a crime by altering your appearance and timing it right. Get in and out at the most opportune in the least noticeable moment. Anything more elaborate than that is going to get you caught. Thank you so much for the question Sarah.

Erika Perra asked this question in the Facebook group. "In an episode of Law & Order: SVU, there was a room where the detectives waited to be called as witnesses until the bailiff came to collect them. Does that room have a name?"

Well, in the Facebook group, author and fellow law enforcement officer, RJ Beam replied to Erica's question with, "They've been sequestered. Some courthouses have a room for it. Others, the cops just go take over a conference room. Back in the day it was common to bring a deck of cards and we would all play while waiting. But as technology advanced folks started to bring laptops with DVD movies and now streaming or iTunes downloads."

And former forensic scientists turned editor, Melissa Kreikmeier replied to Erika's question with, "When I testified, I waited in all sorts of rooms. Sometimes for hours. It was usually a room down the hall from the courtroom. The smaller the jurisdiction, the more interesting the room. Offices, conference rooms, work areas, other witnesses were in there too. We could talk to each other, but not about the case. I only had my case file with me."

Before I go on. Definitely check out both of these experts' websites. You can find RJ at premeditatedfiction.com and Melissa at flowersandforensics.com. As you can tell by RJ and Melissa's answers, it varies by courthouse and by jurisdiction. Sometimes it's just a room outside the courtroom designed for attorneys to meet with clients. Sometimes it's a conference room. I've spent hours upon hours sitting on a bench in the hallway right outside the courtroom waiting for the bailiff to come for me. Sometimes that room is at the DA's office. I've even waited in the office of the deputy DA prosecuting the case. The DA may have a victim witness coordinator that has a waiting room specifically for witnesses and victims to wait in.

So as a detective, I'm usually called as a witness by the prosecution. In a criminal trial, it's the prosecutor that has the burden of proving the case so the prosecutor presents his or her case first. Then once the prosecution rests, the defense gets a chance to defend against the case the prosecution has already laid out for the jury. Since I'm usually a prosecution witness, I'm usually called during that first phase of the trial where the prosecutor is in control of which witness is called in what order. But any witness that is called to the stand by the prosecutor will usually be cross examined by the defense. So all the time I spend waiting in a courtroom hallway or a waiting room is usually because what's going on in the courtroom is taking longer than expected.

So typically it'll be something like the DA tells me we'll be starting at 8.30 and you'll be the second witness to go on. I'm calling Officer Smith first because he was the first officer on scene. Then I will call you since you're the detective that took over from Officer Smith. So that would be the plan. But the judge had an 8:00 AM hearing run late or after Officer Smith answered the prosecutor's questions, the defense attorney had more questions for Officer Smith than we anticipated. So what was supposed to be a morning appearance gets delayed until after lunch or worse, until the next day. So yeah, waiting and court are pretty much synonymous.

Unless you're the investigating officer, in which case you may be in the courtroom at the prosecutor's table for the entire trial. You'll still be waiting a ton, but you'll be inside the courtroom but mainly to help the prosecution throughout the case. All that to say, unless it's the victim witness coordinators waiting room, not only does the room not have a name, we don't usually know where they'll make us wait until we get there. And like Melissa mentioned, the only thing I have with me when I'm about to testify is the report or case file I'm about to testify in reference to. So as a writer trying to convey what room you're talking about, you can always call it a green room, which is what they call it on a TV talk show set where the guests wait to go on stage. And your reader will certainly know what you mean.

Thank you so much for listening this week. This show is powered by your questions, so send them to me by going to writersdetective.com/podcast. Thanks again for listening. Stay inside, stay healthy, have a great week and write well and Happy Mother's Day Mom.

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