Holding Law Enforcement Accountable by Expediting the Review of Body-Camera Footage, Jail Calls, and Other Digital Discovery

Nearly all major police departments across the country have body-worn camera programs, which means that defense lawyers, investigators, and paralegals will often need to pore through hours upon hours of video footage as they defend their clients. But body-worn camera footage can be inconclusive at best and misleading at worst.

From police drones to body cameras, this webinar guided the criminal defense bar through the functionality, technological limitations, and legal challenges of litigating police technology in criminal cases.

This webinar walked through the recommendations and talk about how to negotiate stronger body camera policies in your jurisdiction, the technical aspects of body cameras, and strategies and tactics for defending clients in body camera jurisdictions. 

With protections in place, body cameras have the potential to better document encounters between police officers and citizens while mitigating competing concerns about their potential for misuse or abuse.

NACDL released its report Policing Body Cameras: Policies and Practices to Safeguard the Rights of the Accused in March 2017, outlining NACDL’s position on the introduction and use of body cameras by law enforcement. This webinar walks through the recommendations and talks about how to negotiate stronger body camera policies in your jurisdiction, the technical aspects of body cameras, and strategies and tactics for defending clients in body camera jurisdictions.

This panel highlights policing reforms adopted over the last year and what still needs to be done.

20^th Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference
August 18-20, 2021 | Held Virtually

Police departments across the country are starting to use facial recognition technology to identify suspects, and body camera manufacturers are working to incorporate the technology into their products. This emerging technology has many flaws, which render its results unreliable. Defenders need to understand the technology and its limitations, be aware of how it is being deployed, and know how to challenge its use in their cases.

Body-worn cameras have diminished what defense counsel can do to minimize the adverse effects of poor performance on field sobriety tests. In addition, poor video performance calls into doubt defenses commonly raised regarding breath testing. Originally introduced for the protection of the police, body-worn cameras are here to stay and bound to improve. Competent representation of people charged with alcohol-related operating offenses requires counsel to be aware of the various strategies that can be pursued when a client’s case includes the ever-present and ofttimes damning electronic eye.

Below are NACDL's comments on Executive Order 14074 on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety. The policing technologies at issue in the Executive Order create serious harms for individual criminal defendants, their lawyers, and the criminal legal system more broadly. In this comment, NACDL aims to highlight the serious dangers that these technologies pose and propose recommendations for mitigating those dangers.

The Fourth Amendment has entered the digital age. New surveillance technologies and programs — from GPS tracking devices to automated license plate readers to bulk data collection — have upended traditional law enforcement practices and created new challenges for defense lawyers. This report offers an overview of this symposium and the substantive areas of concern related to new technological and legal changes that impact Fourth Amendment protections in criminal cases. [Released June 2016]

In response to a series of high-profile police killings of unarmed people of color, law enforcement agencies across the country began adopting body cameras as a solution to requests for more transparency and accountability. In order to study the impact of body cameras on the rights of the accused, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers established a Body Camera Task Force comprised of defense attorneys from across the country. [Released March 2017]

2012

NACDL frequently writes to members of Congress, the Department of Justice, and the president on fourth amendment issues. These letters have been collected and are available for download by clicking on the titles below.