Chain of custody includes the date of collection-which to my knowledge, has never been clarified. Was it ever mentioned anywhere before October 2022? Any evidence without chain of custody is typically thrown out.
AJMO.
bbm
“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 a transfer occurs (along with the signatures of persons involved at each step).
Maintaining a chain of custody is essential for the forensic scientist that is working on a specific criminal case. The documentation of evidence is key for maintaining a chain of custody because everything that is done to the piece of evidence must be listed and whoever came in contact with that piece of evidence is accountable for what happens to it. This prevents police officers and other law officials from contaminating the evidence or taking the piece of evidence.”
en.m.wikipedia.org