AI ETHICS
2.
Evidence and Case Review; Legal Research and Writing
Defenders are deploying AI to address the crushing workload that has long defined public defense, including everything from intake to evidence analysis to trial preparation. For example, the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy uses JusticeText to “handle the surge of bodycam footage in cases,” and defenders reported that it “reduced time spent reviewing evidence by hours per case, allowing them to find key contradictions in police statements more efficiently.” 41 The Colorado State Public Defender’s office has used Reduct, which allows defenders to highlight key clips, generate captions, and create court exhibits from bodycam footage and police interrogations. 42 AI transcription and analysis tools have thus fundamentally changed how defenders manage overwhelming swaths of data and evidence. Defenders upload audio and video files, and AI generates searchable transcripts within minutes. What once required teams of staff listening to recordings in real time now happens automatically. Attorneys can search across hours of footage using keywords, jumping directly to moments where specific topics, names, or phrases appear. One Wisconsin defender used JusticeText to more efficiently reveal evidence of police misconduct that would have required substantial manual review, including instances where detectives destroyed evidence intentionally. 43 AI also performs substantive analysis of discovery materials. When police reports and witness statements are uploaded, AI generates organized summaries that highlight key facts such as who was involved, what evidence was collected, and where inconsistencies appear. It can identify which witnesses may be changing their stories and flags contradictions between different accounts of the same events. In another example, the California Innocence Project relied on CoCounsel to narrowly focus on issues commonly seen in wrongful conviction cases, such as witness misidentification. It also helped comb through documents in databases to identify inconsistencies in witness statements or testimony. The managing attorney, Michael Semanchik, said: “Maybe we get to the point where it’s able to just take a look at an entire case, flag some of the wrongful conviction causes that we normally see and send it over for attorney review so we’re not spinning our wheels trying to find the good cases; the good cases come to us through AI.” 44
3.
Sentencing Advocacy
AI also supports sentencing advocacy. Some platforms analyze federal sentencing data to generate statistical reports on likely sentencing outcomes based on historical trends. 45 By analyzing trends in judicial decisions, defenders can present data-backed arguments demonstrating disparities or inconsistencies in sentencing patterns for similarly situated defendants. 46
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Parity in Practice: The Defender’s Duty to Ethically Use AI
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