“Forensic video analysis is a very powerful tool that can be used in search of the truth. There is no prosecution truth or defense truth; there is only the truth.”
To the lofty statement above, Jonathan Hak, Q.C., a recently retired major crimes prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Services in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, adds this ominous thought, “Though forensic video analysis has been used in our courts for over 25 years, it remains an area of expertise that is constantly under attack.”1
Prosecutor Hak points out,
These attacks include challenges to the science itself under Daubert and Frye; arguments that the trier of fact does not need expert assistance in understanding the video evidence; that the expert opinion evidence is too powerful and usurps the function of the trier of fact; that it was done incorrectly; that the analyst is not properly qualified, etc.
Rarely do the challenges cited by Prosecutor Hak gain any traction, but there is no indication that they are diminishing. But, why is a technique that has been used for over two decades “constantly under attack” in the first place?
