NEW YORK - The New York City Police Department, which handles about 90,000 domestic violence cases annually -- roughly one-third of which lead to arrests and enter the courts -- is starting to gather evidence using digital photography, a tool that experts say could drastically reshape the way these cases are prosecuted.

Domestic violence is among the most complex crime to prosecute because the cases often pit the victim's word against the batterer's or make their way into court with no cooperation from the victim and little evidence. Photographs of bruises or broken furniture, if taken at all, are usually shot with Polaroid cameras. Those snapshots, which are often blurry and fail to make the injuries visible, can take days or even weeks to reach the courts.

But with digital photography, evidence that has been practically impossible to gather quickly or gather at all -- clear and detailed images of injuries like swollen eyes, bruised cheeks and hand prints around the neck -- can be transmitted by computer to prosecutors and judges at the earliest stages of a case.

That way, a judge can have evidence in hand at the arraignment, even before the suspect is charged and before a judge decides whether to grant bail or issue an order of protection to safeguard the victim.

"Many courts are facing technology issues," Mazur said. "That's what is so creative about what New York is doing." A year ago, police and prosecutors in Queens began experimenting with digital photography in domestic violence cases. The technology will soon be in place across the rest of the city, starting with Brooklyn next month, officials said.

The new advances have drawn criticism from those who worry that digital photographs are too easily manipulated, and from others who fear it will give prosecutors more license to pursue a case against the wishes of the victim. Physical evidence like photographs is particularly crucial to prosecutors in domestic abuse cases, because victims often decide not to press charges and may even testify on behalf of a defendant in court.

But prosecutors in Queens say the innovation is helping victims. Since all 16 police precincts in the borough began using digital photography, sending the photographs straight into prosecutors' computers, convictions in domestic abuse cases have risen sharply and dismissals have plummeted, according to the Queens district attorney's office.

"The use of digital photography has had a critical impact," said the district attorney, Richard A. Brown, who said that as a judge in Brooklyn years ago, he often arraigned accused abusers with little or no physical evidence before him. "This makes it impossible for the defendant to deny the seriousness of the crime."

Although no major legal challenges have been mounted to the use of digital photos in domestic violence cases, some people are questioning their admissibility in court because they can be doctored, enhanced or manipulated on a computer. "There are serious concerns," said Susan L. Hendricks, deputy attorney in charge of the criminal defense division of the Legal Aid Society, the main public defender in New York.. "I would be shocked if the result is that they are never admitted as evidence," she went on, "but I think that given the ability to manipulate them, the courts are going to have to be careful, or they should be."

Many prosecutors say that they think the photographs will withstand challenges, and that it is easy to tell if a photograph has been altered.

Source: IAFN, condensed from The New York Times article, Sept. 3,