Our trial section has a question about event data recorders/EDR’s, the “black boxes” you find sometimes in newer cars (also known as ECU’s, electronic control units). Apparently it’s not really possible to easily remove the EDR from the vehicle after a crash, so our office’s policy is to hang onto the crashed vehicle until trial, which of course can be months or years. Both the local PD and the interested parties (owners, insurance company, etc.) want the vehicle freed up but there’s a concern that just downloading the data from the EDR isn’t good enough and that we need to hang on to the vehicle. I haven’t found anything directly on point, I’m trying to think if there may be a related issue where hardware has to be (or doesn’t have to be) retained in lieu of simply downloading evidentiary data. I can’t think of any reason the hardware has to be hung on to, or any analogous issue, but thought someone else might.