The prosecution in that case alleged that the act had been committed in an area under camera surveillance, but it was the defense that brought up the issue of the surveillance. Why? Because the tapes were missing! The prosecution was unable to produce the surveillance evidence of the defendant in the act. The tapes had been misplaced, taped over, whatever.

That missing evidence ended up reflecting very poorly on the prosecution’s case: it prompted us to question both the motives of the store representatives (did they really have a stake in this prosecution, or were we dealing with mechanistic corporate rules?), and the reliability of their investigation. We even had a good laugh about how easy it would be for the twelve of us to shoplift and beat the charge, with crummy investigation like that. Counsel for defense should have patted herself on the back for it; it ended up being the strongest part of the defense’s case.