AI for Public Defenders: Evidence Review at PD Scale

AI for Public Defenders: Review Every Hour of Discovery Without Adding a Single Attorney

Evidence Copilot turns the discovery dump — bodycam, interrogation footage, jail calls, scanned police reports — into timestamped transcripts and cited answers, so overloaded defenders can actually review the file.

The Caseload Math Doesn't Work Anymore

• Workloads far exceed national standards — 286 hours per LWOP case, and discovery review is the first thing cut — The 2023 national public defense workload study (RAND/ABA/NCSC) found average time per case ranges from 286 hours for life-without-parole cases down to 13.5 hours for probation and parole violations — hours most offices simply don't have per client. The 1973 NAC standards capped felony caseloads at 150 per attorney; the new Delphi-method standards show even that was optimistic. When caseloads force triage, overloaded lawyers lack time to review discovery, conduct investigations, and file motions — leaving report-vs-bodycam inconsistencies unexamined and suppression issues unpreserved before the first hearing.
• Staffing shortfalls are the norm, not the exception — 91% of Pennsylvania counties below standards — In Pennsylvania, cases assigned to public defenders require over 1,200 FTE attorneys under current standards, but only about 850 criminal attorney FTEs are employed — and 91% of counties with PD offices fall below standards. Underfunded indigent defense systems across the country force case triage, conflict counsel referrals, and contract-counsel gaps. Every unreviewed discovery dump — bodycam, jail calls, 911 audio, scanned police reports — becomes a Brady/Giglio risk that a one-attorney office has no hours to catch.
• Discovery review is the first thing triaged — and the inconsistencies never surface — When caseloads force triage, discovery review loses to court appearances. In Georgia, caseloads grew by 35,997 cases in five years. The result: report-vs-bodycam discrepancies go unexamined, motions to suppress go unfiled, and cases resolve without appropriate diligence. A single felony intake can include 40 hours of bodycam footage with files named X13qrt9__x3455, interrogation video, and a 200-page scanned police report with no text layer — unsearchable without transcription and OCR a solo defender can't run manually.

Why Public Defender Offices <span class="gradient">Choose Evidence Copilot</span>

• Get through discovery faster at PD pricing — Get through discovery faster at PD pricing: upload the discovery dump — bodycam, interrogation footage, jail calls, 911 audio, scanned police reports — and get timestamped diarized transcripts, OCR'd document text, and a one-click grounded case brief covering evidence inventory, key moments, inconsistencies, and follow-ups. A workflow one defender can run between hearings, critical when the national workload study shows murder cases alone require 248 hours on average.
• Catch report-vs-bodycam inconsistencies automatically — Catch report-vs-bodycam inconsistencies automatically: every new file is compared against earlier evidence in the case on ingest. Candidate inconsistencies — police report vs bodycam, statement vs jail call audio — surface as unreviewed review signals before anyone asks. Cross-exam drafts from a signal give you suggested questions tied to quoted sources, with both sides quoted and cited — no credibility conclusions, just a starting point for attorney review.
• Redact for discovery turnover without touching originals — Redact for discovery turnover without touching originals: frame-accurate video redaction (drag a rectangle, black or blur), word-level audio muting, and image/PDF redaction. Every redaction is a new derived file; originals are never touched; every action is audited. AI-suggested regions — bystander/victim/minor faces, PII screens, license plates — file as suggestion cards marked 'AI-suggested — needs review'; nothing is ever auto-applied.

What's included

• Transcription with speaker diarization and word-level timestamps — one-click speaker renaming propagates across every segment, so 'DETECTIVE 2' becomes a name everywhere in seconds.
• OCR turns scanned police reports and photo evidence — receipts, exhibits, screenshots — into searchable, citable text, with bounding boxes kept for redaction.
• The AI evidence agent reads transcript windows, grabs video frames, extracts clips, writes notes, timeline events, and tasks, and can email transcript excerpts with citations.
• Agent playbooks: Suppression Motion Prep sweeps consent, search scope, stop duration, K-9, and Miranda issues and drafts a motion outline with both sides quoted and cited.
• Exhibit pack exports bundle video clips, still frames, and quoted excerpts with a MANIFEST.md citation index, gated by per-member export permission.
• Two-way email intake: intake@ creates a case from the subject line, and case+{id}@ ingests attachments and answers questions by email with citations and deep links.

Quick wins

• Use the per-case inbound email address to forward discovery attachments straight from the DA's production email — [email protected] creates a new case from the subject line and ingests every attachment automatically.
• Run the Miranda Timeline playbook on custodial-interrogation cases to get a chronological timeline drafted from the interrogation footage and reports, cited to the exact moment.

How it works

1. Upload the discovery dump — Drag in bodycam, interrogation footage, jail calls, 911 audio, police reports, and scanned documents — up to 2 GB per file — or email attachments straight to your per-case inbound address. Intake email creates a new case from the subject line.
2. Review with citations, not guesswork — Get diarized transcripts, OCR'd document text, and auto-signals flagging candidate inconsistencies. Ask the AI evidence agent questions and get answers with clickable citations into the exact video second or PDF page.
3. Build the work product — One-click case brief, suppression motion outlines, Miranda timelines, exhibit lists, cross-exam drafts, and exhibit packs with a MANIFEST.md citation index — all saved as attorney-review notes you control.

How Evidence Copilot <span class="gradient">Grounds</span> Discovery Review for Public Defender Offices

• Every AI answer cites the exact source moment — click a citation and the video seeks to that second or the PDF jumps to that page, so you can verify before relying on it.
• Auto-signals on ingest flag candidate inconsistencies between the police report and bodycam footage, or a client statement and jail call audio, before you even know to ask.
• Attorney-playbook workflows like Suppression Motion Prep and Miranda Timeline draft outlines with both sides quoted and cited — suggested questions only, saved as attorney-review notes, never legal conclusions.

Why we're different

• Every AI answer cites the exact video second or PDF page it came from.
• Defense-only by design — no prosecutor or law-enforcement use cases.
• Auto-signals surface report-vs-bodycam inconsistencies on ingest, unprompted.
• Multi-camera sync links bodycam, dashcam, and interview room to one master clock.
• Redactions are derived files — originals immutable, every action audited.
• MCP server lets you query cases read-only from Claude Desktop or Claude Code.
• Published pricing with no feature tiers — every plan includes the full workspace.
• AI output is always marked pending human review; the product never makes legal conclusions.

Published pricing with no sales wall: Solo $39/user/mo, Firm $99/user/mo, PD Office $750/attorney/yr — full workspace on every plan, no feature tiers.

What clients say

The auto-signals caught a line in the police report that didn't match the bodycam audio — I had the cross-exam draft with both quotes cited before I'd finished my first pass through the file. On a caseload this heavy, that's the difference between an inconsistency that surfaces and one that never does.

— Marcus Delgado

I ran the Suppression Motion Prep playbook on a stop-and-search case and got a motion outline with both sides quoted and cited — consent, search scope, stop duration, the Miranda timeline. It's a starting point I can verify; every citation seeks to the exact second. Nothing makes a legal conclusion for me.

— Priya Raghavan

We redact for discovery turnover constantly. Frame-accurate video redaction with immutable originals and an audit trail is the first tool I've trusted enough to put in front of our supervisors — every redaction is a new derived file and nothing is auto-applied.

— Dana Whitfield

Frequently asked questions

Book a 20-minute walkthrough at evidencecopilot.com/book — bring a real discovery file and see every answer cited to the exact second. Or start on the Solo plan at evidencecopilot.com/signup.