Lancaster County prosecutors and public defenders will soon have new artificial intelligence tools to help them sort through the growing amount of digital evidence used in criminal cases. The Lancaster County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved separate agreements Tuesday with Axon Enterprise for the County Attorney’s Office and Public Defender’s Office.
County Attorney Pat Condon said the technology will allow prosecutors to bring together evidence including police body-camera and cruiser video, surveillance footage from businesses and written reports. The system can then use artificial intelligence to search through the material. “We can take all those videos and put them in and all the reports and put them in all together and do some AI searches on that to say, you know, show us all photos of guns, show us all reports where a gun is mentioned,” Condon said.
Condon stressed that the technology will not replace attorneys reviewing the underlying evidence. He said the system can quickly point an attorney to a particular place in a video or report, but attorneys will still be expected to verify the results. “One of the things I harp on my attorneys is they got to go back and make sure that, you know, it is there where the AI says it is,” Condon said.
The technology can also translate material in dozens of languages. Condon said that could include phone calls or other evidence that may be used in a prosecution.
The Public Defender’s Office will use the Axon technology as well. Public Defender Chris Dieger said his attorneys receive discovery in County Attorney cases from the County Attorney’s Office, and the two offices worked together on the contracts.
Dieger said the system could be particularly useful for reconstructing what happened during a criminal investigation. “It’s going to be very helpful in helping us do timelines and tracking GPS, and we can track where officers were at a certain time or, you know, locations of cruisers,” Dieger said. She said defense attorneys also receive surveillance video from businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations that may use different video systems. Axon will allow those different sources to be incorporated into one system. “It will help in every case, whether it’s a DUI or a theft case,” Dieger said.
Dieger also pointed to the system’s translation capabilities as a potential benefit for communicating with clients who do not speak English. He said his office hopes it can use the technology to translate letters and other communications for clients in jail or elsewhere in the community.
The County Attorney’s agreement is not to exceed $1,050,780, while the Public Defender’s agreement is not to exceed $876,900. Condon told commissioners the County Attorney’s figure covers an initial five-year contract and an automatic five-year renewal, for a potential 10-year term. Dieger said that was also his understanding of the Public Defender’s agreement.
Combined, the two agreements could total nearly $1.93 million over that period.
Condon said Lancaster County has been working with the Lincoln Police Department and its Axon contract and hopes cooperation among local agencies could eventually reduce costs. He said the University of Nebraska also uses Axon and suggested bringing additional agencies together could create economies of scale.
Commissioner Sean Flowerday said the technology could save attorneys time by more efficiently gathering information. Following Dieger’s presentation, Flowerday said prosecutors and public defenders had worked together to find a tool that could help “accurate stories be told when they go to court.”
The county had previously identified the Axon project in budget documents as a planned digital evidence management system designed to streamline discovery. The agreements approved Tuesday clear the way for the County Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices to begin using the technology.