In order to establish the "chain of custody" for a piece of evidence to be admissible in court, it needs to be proven that someone was responsible for, and can testify to, the security of the evidence from the time it was seized, until the time it is presented to the court.  A portion of the custody chain that is particularly vulnerable in many agencies involves temporary storage.

Temporary storage refers to the gap between the time the employee who seized the evidence leaves it at the station, and the time that it is actually received by a property room employee.  During this time, which could vary from a few hours to a few days, depending on the agency and the time of the evidence seizure, the property has left the hands of one person, but has not yet been received by another.

Since there is not a person in physical control of the property during the time of temporary storage, there must be a storage facility and methodology that will allow a person to testify to the security of the property, even though there was not a person physically present.  The precedent is that evidence stored in the property room is deemed to remain secure and "within the chain" even though the property room has no employees present during certain hours.  The physical security of the facility, and the procedures restricting access during that time, allow the court to logically determine that the property officer was still "in possession" of the property, even though he or she was not physically present.

Similarly, courts have ruled that property placed in temporary storage has technically been received by the property officer, even though the property officer is not present and does not even know the property has been turned in, IF it has been placed in a storage area that is secure, and which can only be opened by property room personnel.  If the officer securing the evidence can get it back, or if the watch commander has a key to retrieve the property, or if a pocket knife or bobby pin can be used to readily gain access to the property, then the entire custody chain becomes suspect.

The actual size , shape, or source of such temporary containers are insignificant, if they meet the criteria of physical and procedural security.  The most convenient method involves custom built cabinets (lockers) in a common wall between the Property Room and the room in which the employee who seized the evidence would package it for submission.  The cabinets would be of varying sizes and shapes.  The doors on the booking employee's side would be one way, in that once they are closed, the latch would automatically lock so that it cannot be reopened from that side.  The doors on the property room side are sufficiently secure to maintain the sanctity of the property room, and when they are open they not only allow the property officer to remove the evidence, but allow him or her to reach through the cabinet to release the door latch on the other side so the cabinet can be re-used.  The construction of such cabinets have been described in an earlier issue of The Evidence Log.

If lockers with individual keys are used for temporary storage, a modification can make them meet the criteria necessary for maintaining the custody chain.  Make one of the lockers a "Key Locker", by cutting a slot near the top of the locker door that is just large enough to drop a key through.  Only property room personnel would have keys to that locker.  An employee booking evidence in another locker would secure the locker and then drop the key into the "Key Locker", noting the time in the property report.  The property room can be deemed to have received the evidence at that time.

Some agencies have even used commercial mailboxes like you would see on a streetcorner as an evidence repository for small articles.  The employees would secure the evidence in envelopes with the appropriate paperwork securely attached, and then drop it into the mailbox, which had been securely mounted in the evidence packaging area.  The Property Room employees would then go there and empty the mailbox periodically.

Whatever solution you devise, keep in mind this principle: Once evidence is placed in temporary storage by the employee who books it into the property system, it must immediately be secure, and accessible from that point forward only by property room personnel.