Video Discovery Tools for Public Defense
July 2024
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5 min read
As a public defender, you’d likely find yourself checking off these all-too-familiar boxes:
☐ You receive a mountain of video footage in even the most routine criminal cases.
☐ You are short-staffed, so it’s impossible to thoroughly review each footage.
☐ You need an all-in-one solution that does all the heavy-lifting for you.
If you said yes to at least one of them, we have just the tool for you to tackle all these challenges—Reduct!
Reduct is an all-encompassing solution for public defenders that handles everything from legal transcription, timestamping, redaction, creation of video exhibits, you name it.
In this article, I’ll walk you through features that make Reduct stand out among some of the other transcription companies for audio and video discovery.
1. Industry leading transcription accuracy - No charge for silences
Most footage that gets submitted as discovery contains static noise, cross-talks, and witnesses talking in the background.
While most AI transcription tools struggle to achieve an on-par level of accuracy for these audios, Reduct boasts 94% accuracy across over 90 languages, with human transcription achieving near-zero errors.
With Reduct’s edit-based transcription feature, you can directly edit the legal transcript to correct any word errors.
Unlike HappyScribe, one of the popular transcription tools, Reduct gives you the flexibility to make necessary corrections and ensure accuracy throughout.
This feature resulted in a 36% cost savings for State PDs in the first half of 2024.
2. Searchable repository - Find crucial evidence with keywords
Given the volume and nature of criminal discovery footage, it is impractical for a public defense attorney to go through each video to find that one compelling piece of evidence to defend your client.
Reduct alleviates this challenge with its searchable repository that gives you unlimited storage.
In Reduct, you can create case-wise projects to batch import all relevant footage to respective cases.
Now say you want to search for a DUI footage of a case you’re working on. All you need to do is type ‘DUI’ for instance and Reduct will find all instances in which the exact and similar words have been spoken, like ‘alcohol’, ‘driving sober’ and ‘speeding’.
A few transcription tools, like Sonix for instance, have a search and replace feature where you can search for the exact words across the transcripts. In addition to the typical search and replace, Reduct’s fuzzy search makes it possible for you to find broad keywords along with exact matches, making your work 10x more efficient.
3. Multi-cam synchronization and timeline view - Important for video forensics
Police officers typically work in tandem, with many officers showing up to complex crime scenes at once. Officers also move between scenes, interviewing a suspect together at times, and going off to investigate something at other times.
As a result, it is sometimes very difficult to make sense of the timeline of all of the footage that was obtained in a case. It is also difficult to view multiple separate body cams, at multiple different angles, and piece all of it together after the fact.
Reduct offers transcript-based video synchronization, which creates both a timeline view, as well as a multi-camera view where multiple body cameras that are being recorded at the same time can be viewed side-by-side, often illustrating key evidence that is invisible in one body camera view but not the other.
4. Audio/video redaction - Protect your clients’ sensitive data
Oftentimes, a piece of evidence may contain sensitive information or prejudicial statements that aren’t admissible in court.
Very few transcription companies, if any, provide audio/video redaction features. Even JusticeText, which primarily caters to public defenders, is yet to introduce video redaction features.
But with Reduct, you can achieve court-admissible audio and video redaction by using just the transcripts. To do that, you can select the transcript containing sensitive information, then select the ‘redact’ option.
Then you can go ahead and choose if you want to mute segments of the audio, or blur faces and sensitive information from the footage.
5. Video clipping - Extract clips to submit as video exhibits
Body-worn cameras and video surveillance capture critical moments, such as during a DUI case where a defendant initially admits driving under the influence when stopped by the police officer but later denies it in court.
This situation underscores the possibility of the defendant potentially lying about the events, despite it being captured in the recorded interaction.
This stark contrast highlights the importance of video reels, which emphasize differences between their recorded actions and courtroom statements.
Unlike other transcription providers like rev.ai where there’s a very less interactive editing option available, Reduct offers a unique feature: the ability to transform hour-long footage into concise reels of digital evidence.
By selecting key segments from the transcription, you can effortlessly create a compelling reel using the 'add to reel' option, bolstering the evidentiary impact of your case.
You can share your reels via links or exported files or simply download them.
6. Multilingual translation - See what a non-native defendant has to say
Multilingual footage—including interrogation or an interview with the victim/suspect—can pose a significant challenge for attorneys if they do not understand the languages spoken. This can create a challenge in accurately documenting the incident.
Fortunately, Reduct provides a cost-effective and rapid solution to this issue through a quick translation process.
Reduct can translate hundreds of hours of raw video and audio footage quickly with high accuracy.
It offers an accurate and customizable translation solution in over 90 languages. However, transcription providers used by law enforcement, such as CaseGuard, provide translation capabilities in only 31 languages, highlighting a more limited linguistic scope compared to Reduct.
7. Timestamp - Cross-examine your footage for authenticity
The generated transcripts have line numbers and exact timestamps with formatting that meets most federal and state court systems’ specifications.
In most cases, the video evidence is already admitted in court. You can use the transcript timestamps for cross-examination if, for instance, the accused offender is denying a statement.
You can export your transcripts as ASCII txt or PDF, and they are compatible with all industry-standard video discovery and case management software.
8. Reduct’s security measures - Keeping your content safe
Reduct has been designed from the ground up with security and privacy by design. Within 2 years of operation, Reduct was able to achieve SOC II Type 2 certification, which is considered the "Gold Standard" for Enterprise Security. It serves multiple Fortune 500 companies and has been vetted for security by sophisticated IT teams at these firms.
Reduct also works with a single transcription partner, whose in-house transcribers can offer a much more secure transcription service. As a result of this secure model, Reduct can offer human transcription that is subject to the rigorous standards of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.)
Most other transcription companies’ models for human transcription have some inherent security risks. Rev, for example, is dependent on freelancers around the world who transcribe content, and has previously been reported to leave customer data completely out in the open as a result of this model.
This is likely why Rev’s SOC II Type 2 certification came a full 12 years after its founding. Rev is also not able to guarantee security and privacy at the level that Reduct can.
Make Reduct your defense assistant
With Reduct, public defenders can confidently bring discovery evidence to court without worrying about transcript accuracy, legal formatting of discovery materials, or handling multilingual content securely—Reduct handles it all seamlessly.
Want to see Reduct in action? Get in touch with the team or get started with Reduct’s free trial!
