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Re: Destruction of notes and data
Posted by:
Gerald Hurst (IP Logged)
Date: February 25, 2007 11:21AM
The destruction of field notes by the original investigators amounts to the destruction of evidence. The fact that there is no law against it or that the courts side with governmant agencies and insurance companies who have institutionalized the practice is irrelevant.
The principle issue here should be moral and ethical considerations. If the fire investigation community takes the high road, the courts will follow.
Why keep field notes? Because there are numerous innocent people in our prisons who might gain their freedom if we only had access to information that was once recorded but never made it into a report.