TrialVector
Workspace
← All evidence types

Surveillance video

show · educate · route

Fixed-camera footage from a business, residence, or public system — powerful when preserved, litigated hard when it was not.

What this type commonly supports

  • How an incident unfolded
  • Who was present and when
  • Lighting, weather, and conditions

How the gates bear on it

Original contents

Describing what a recording showed, to prove the recording's contents, is Article X territory — and a playback problem is not a statutory ground by itself.

All originals are lost or destroyed, unless the proponent lost or destroyed them in bad faith.

Authentication

System-and-process testimony (how the camera records, retention, export) commonly carries the foundation.

Hearsay

The images are not statements; embedded audio can be — every layer gets its own route.

Except as provided by statute, hearsay evidence is inadmissible.

The governing units, loaded whole

The recurring failure modes

  • Letting the retention cycle overwrite the source file
  • Exporting a clip and discarding the native file
  • A witness narrating an unintroduced recording

Software, not a law firm. This page teaches how Florida's evidence gates generally bear on this type — legal information, not legal advice, and never a prediction about your evidence. Whether a particular item clears the gates in your case is judgment work: an independent Florida attorney can review it and bill you directly. The five-gate frame lives on the Evidence Command Center.