[2] Tampering with evidence is closely related to the legal issue of spoliation of evidence, which is usually the civil law or due process version of the same concept (but may itself be a crime).
The goal of tampering with evidence is usually to cover up a crime or with intent to injure the accused person.
[6] The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a trier of fact can draw from a party's destruction of evidence that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: the finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party.
[7] The theory of the spoliation inference is that when a party destroys evidence, it may be reasonable to infer that the party had "consciousness of guilt" or other motivation to avoid the evidence.
[8] When police confiscate[2] or destroy a citizen's photographs or recordings of officers' misconduct, the police's act of destroying the evidence may be prosecuted as an act of evidence tampering, if the recordings being destroyed are potential evidence in a criminal or regulatory investigation of the officers themselves.