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Chain of custody refers to the chronological documentation, and/or paper trail , showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence , physical or electronic. Because evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to avoid later allegations of tampering or misconduct which can compromise the case of the prosecution toward acquittal or to overturning a guilty verdict upon appeal . The idea behind recoding the chain of custody is to establish that the alleged evidence is fact related to the alleged crime - rather than, for example, having been planted fraudulently to make someone appear guilty.

Establishing the chain of custody is especially important when the evidence consists of fungible goods . In practice, this most often applies to illegal drugs which have been seized by law enforcement personnel. In such cases, the defendant at times disclaims any knowledge of possession of the controlled substance in question. Accordingly, the chain of custody documentation and testimony is presented by the prosecution to establish that the substance in evidence was in fact in the possession of the defendant.

An identifiable person must always have the physical custody of a piece of evidence. In practice, this means that a police officer or detective will take charge of a piece of evidence, document its collection, and hand it over to an evidence clerk for storage in a secure place. These transactions, and every succeeding transaction between the collection of the evidence and its appearance in court, should be completely documented chronologically in order to withstand legal challenges to the authenticity of the evidence. Documentation should include the conditions under which the evidence is gathered, the identity of all evidence handlers, duration of evidence custody, security conditions while handling or storing the evidence, and the manner in which evidence is transferred to subsequent custodians each time such a transfer occurs (along with the signatures of persons involved at each step).