Digital evidence and justice have a complicated relationship, and Tyler Hatch has spent a career inside that gap. The footage exists. The screenshot exists. The court sees something completely different from what everyone else sees, and that disconnect is not a bug in the system.

What does it feel like to watch a video that seems to show something obvious and then watch the legal outcome land somewhere else entirely? Hatch explains why: courts are not watching the same clip. They are asking what was in someone’s mind, whether the response was proportionate, and whether the evidence itself can actually be verified.

A screenshot, he points out, is just a picture. There is no way to confirm those messages were sent without pulling the data directly off the phone.

Topics: digital evidence and justice, screenshot evidence reliability, video evidence courtroom, digital forensics, critical thinking evidence

GUEST: Tyler Hatch | DFI Forensics

Originally aired on2026-04-22