On July 25 last year, in circuit court in Dane County, Wisconsin, a motion was filed to dismiss a criminal case as a result of what defense attorneys

AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened?

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2024-04-18 14:30:07

On July 25 last year, in circuit court in Dane County, Wisconsin, a motion was filed to dismiss a criminal case as a result of what defense attorneys described as “institutional bad-faith actions” by a local police department. The evidence was unearthed, in part, because of artificial intelligence.

Attorney Jessa Nicholson Goetz had been preparing to defend her client against a sexual assault charge that arose from a 2021 Tinder date. During pretrial motions, Nicholson Goetz’s co-counsel noticed discrepancies around how the lead police investigator was discussing and documenting his use of a body camera, which department policy required him to wear at all times. Nicholson Goetz asked to review footage connected to the investigation; she said the police department delivered 40 hours of video before the trial began.

This kind of data dump is commonplace, typically right before the start of a trial. Manually reviewing body camera footage isn’t always a useful source of insight into a case; more often, especially for defense attorneys without resources, it’s a nightmare. Actually watching the tapes is very time consuming, and paying to have them transcribed can add tens of thousands of dollars to tight budgets.