A court reporter commented to me this week during trial, “This is the first case I’ve had in a while where there’s no video of the crime.”
I thought about it and realized she was right. There was an easy explanation. The crime being prosecuted happened in 2006, before there was a working camera on every store front, street pole, and intersection in New York City.
Now virtually everything anyone does on a street in New York (and probably all big cities) is captured on video, preserved for generally 30 to 60 days, and available to police, provided they look.
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As soon as a crime is reported, good cops will scout for video. Many will approach building supers, store owners, and the local bartender to play the video for them right away so the investigator can tape it on his cell phone to preserve it instantly. They’ll then return to the scene to pick up the actual tape and go through it with a fine-tooth comb.
I’ve done summations where the prosecutor slowed down or repeated video of the actual moment of, let’s say, a stabbing so many times, it made the jury think the victim was stabbed repeatedly instead of just once.
By culling a frame from a video and feeding it into a computer system for facial recognition — police can match the photo of the suspect with driver’s licenses, passports, mug shots, and even ID cards of state or federal employees.
A frame, once blown up and shown to a jury, makes it hard to then argue that it’s not your client, or that it’s not a knife (as opposed to a phone) in his hand.
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Police are so inundated with video these days, I’ve had cases where some cops had the store proprietor download what he thought was relevant to disc, then hand it to them. (I had a field day with this on summation.)
Among my recent cases, video from a nightclub was used to show where the defendant and complainant were prior to the alleged rape in a bathroom. In another case, footage taken of a street assault showed the 911 caller walking down the street past the fight as she called the police. The prosecutor played the video simultaneous with the 911 call — it was as good as being there.
I currently represent a defendant charged in the murder of “Junior” Lesandro Guzman-Feliz outside a bodega in the Bronx. The video of the killing (a group of men appearing to machete a 15-year-old boy) somehow made its way to the public (read, leaked from the police) and went viral within hours. It’ll be difficult to find a fair jury with that.
I tried a robbery case that took place in a Fairway supermarket in midtown. There were so many camera angles and some so close up, you could practically see the perpetrator’s sweat.
My present trial dates back to 2006. Only 12 years ago and our lives weren’t quite this surveilled. There were still places to go to be alone, unwatched, unrecognized. Crimes were still proven using DNA, fingerprints, eyewitness identifications — but not every move a person made was on video ready for the viewing.
This doesn’t even include the amount of video taken, not by security cameras, but by passersby, neighbors, and the curious with their cell phones.
Street crime just isn’t as easy to get away with anymore, unless you wear a mask, but that might quickly give away your game.
Then again, there’s always white collar. At least then, it’s not on video.
Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.