Meanwhile, Kentucky prosecutors benefit from higher funding and expanded support, which means public defense attorneys have to equip themselves with tools that can break the status quo.
Throughout this imbalance, a new AI-powered tool called JusticeText — exclusive to public defenders — has emerged as a potential aid, offering public defenders a crucial boost in analyzing case evidence efficiently, in efforts to level the playing field and ensure fair defense.
Since the implementation of body-worn camera footage requirements within police departments, prosecutors and defense attorneys have access to a potential treasure trove of evidence.
That is, if they have the time to sift through it.
Tatum Goetz-Isaacs, the directing trial attorney for the Covington Department of Public Advocacy, said a majority of cases contain a minimum of three hours of body camera footage, and some have more than 100 hours if several officers are involved.
With a lack of assets and attorneys strapped with heavy caseloads, the Department of Public Advocacy is constantly forced to find ways to make the most of their resources. With the help of JusticeText, attorneys have the ability to save some time on work that would consume hours and days of their time, Goetz-Isaacs said.
“It’s extraordinarily difficult,” she said of the workload.
“There is high turnover in public defense, and when you have ways to use technology to cut out hours spent doing the analytical work in a case, you are going to be able to go home and spend time with family. All of that has a big impact on longevity.”
What is JusticeText?
JusticeText was designed by Devshi Mehrotra and Leslie Jones-Dove, who were computer science students at the University of Chicago in 2015. That’s when dash-cam footage was released showing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being fatally shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke.
Officials and police reports initially said McDonald was behaving erratically with a knife and lunged at officers. But the dash cam footage disproved those statements, and showed McDonald walking away.
The two used this tragedy as a launch pad for their program, which they hoped would give more accountability through technological intervention.
“(Public defenders) would tell us, on the one hand, they are so excited to have access to the footage because it allows them to potentially challenge a police narrative in a way that wasn’t previously possible,” Mehrotra said.
“On the other hand, they are dealing with overwhelming workloads and simply don’t have the time to go through hours and hours of footage on top of everything they are already juggling.”
JusticeText was designed to improve the efficiency of legal defense by using automated transcription services and case management tools designed to streamline the review and organization of case evidence.
Attorneys use the software to take time stamped notes, create video clips and catalog their digital discovery — saving defenders hours previously spent on manual transcriptions and allowing them to be more focused on case preparation and client interaction.
Department of Public Advocacy Bluegrass Regional Manager Chris Tracy has used the software in several cases in particular with discovery review, allowing public defenders to reduce the amount of time it takes to sift through body-worn camera footage, interrogation videos, or 911 calls.
“This helps you zero in on what may actually be helpful and useful,” he said. “It may be (conclusive) or it may be damning to our case, but it’s better to be able to see it quicker.”
Indigent clients represented by an underfunded public defense
In 1963, the Supreme Court decided in Gideon v. Wainwright that, for criminal cases to be fair, defense lawyers are “necessities, not luxuries.” Governments had to fund public defense.
The luxury seemed to stop there — even with the implementation of a new department that would come to represent more than 80% of felony defendants in our country’s largest counties who rely on publicly financed attorneys.
A Kentucky public defender has nearly 375 cases annually — 36% higher than the national standard for public defenders’ offices in 2022, according to an annual public advocacy report from that same year. This average caseload is based on full staffing, meaning that the number is even higher when defenders leave public advocacy for other positions.
That same report revealed total prosecutor funding exceeds indigent defense funding by more than 60% — and has consistently done so since 2012.
Another challenge to overcome was that one in four departing Department of Public Advocacy attorneys leave for prosecutor positions at higher salaries, according to the report.
As of June 26, Kentucky’s Public Advocate Damon Preston said the department has lost five attorneys in the span of three weeks, as more funding has become available for prosecutors to have higher starting pay, and higher raises.
That’s not to say Preston hasn’t asked for these things himself. He has received them, but not at the rate in which prosecutors do, he said. When the public defense is given a dollar, the Kentucky prosecutorial system is given “at least a dollar” in return, he said.
Kentucky budgets two years at a time, with odd years first, Preston explained. That means that meaningful “budget increases” or “budget cuts” occur from even to odd years going from one biennium to the next, not odd to even within a single biennium, according to Preston.
The changes from fiscal year 2022 to 2023 show a $17.8 million increase for county and commonwealth attorneys versus a $14.3 million for the public defender’s office. From fiscal year 2024 to 2025, prosecutors will receive an additional $20.1 million compared to the Department of Public Advocacy’s $14.1 million.
Preston said he is thankful for the state’s support of the public defense system, saying the funding has increased in the past year.
“Kentucky has supported public defense more than a lot of states,” he said. “We have resources and investigators, and we are traditionally supported decently.”
Preston said JusticeText is a nice resource, but he wishes his office had more funding to expand the program. Not all Kentucky public defenders, or their offices, have access to the program.
“It is only a small part of what we do,” Preston said.
“All we can do is have this as a limited resource that helps us to meet a constitutional obligation to the client and keep our head above water.”
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