Being able to account for an item of evidence from its finding to presentation in court is known as what?

• A. Chain of custody log
• B. Chain of custody
• C. Chain of evidence
• D. Chain of title

Answer: (B)

Maintaining a chain of custody means you can account for an item of evidence from the moment it’s found through to its presentation in court. It’s a continuous, unbroken record of all transfers and handling: who had the item, when and where it was moved or stored, what analyses were performed, and how its condition is tracked, all the way to its final disposition. This process protects the evidence’s integrity and supports admissibility by showing it hasn’t been altered or misused. The chain of custody log is the documentary tool used to record each step, but the concept itself is the ongoing process of maintaining that trace. The other phrases don’t fit as well: a chain of evidence refers more to the evidence itself, a chain of title to property ownership, and the log alone is just the record, not the full procedure.