By John V. Barbieri and Michael K. Dvorkin Contact All Articles
New York Law Journal
November 11, 2013
Surveillance cameras in public spaces, not long ago the stuff of sci-fi films and Orwellian visions, have now become commonplace. Today, one would be surprised indeed to learn that the security protocol of a major department store or supermarket chain did not include surveillance; ubiquity of cameras has affected our world in ways both meaningful (identification of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects) and trivial (the online videos kids watch while putting off their homework), and litigators have increasingly utilized surveillance camera footage of the events that form the basis of the litigation. While courts have long considered surveillance footage to be appropriate, and in many cases even the "best," evidence, what happens when an event should have been captured by surveillance cameras, but the footage is not (or has not been made) available?
