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Tampering, falsification, and spoliation

Acts that conceal, corrupt, or destroy evidence can be considered spoliation of evidence and/or tampering with evidence. Spoliation is usually the civil-law / due-process variant, may involve intent or negligence, may affect the outcome of a case in which the evidence is material, and may or may not result in criminal prosecution. Tampering is usually the criminal law variant in which a person alters, conceals, falsifies, or destroys evidence to interfere with a law-enforcement, governmental, or regulatory investigation, and is usually defined as a crime. Parallel construction is the creation of an untruthful, but plausible, explanation for how the evidence came to be held, which hides its true origins, either to protect sources and methods used, or to avoid the evidence being excluded as unlawfully obtained. Depending on the circumstances, acts to conceal or destroy evidence or misrepresent its true origins might be considered both tampering and spoliation.