CASE STUDY

Beyond the Dashcam: The Angles Law Firm's Cutting Edge DUI Defense Workflow

About Chris Angles

Christopher Angles has been defending clients in Kansas, Missouri and across the country since 1996. Angles vigorously defends those accused of serious offenses including financial crimes, drug offenses, robberies, sex crimes and other allegations at all stages in the juvenile, municipal, state, and federal courts.

The Challenge

A typical DUI has police video from the field from body-worn cameras and/or dashcams, and often an interrogation at the station. Evidence comes in all sorts of mediums: thumb drives, DVDs, and downloadable links to files that belong in digital museums.

The sheer volume of evidence his office receives means Chris cannot possibly watch everything.

This often leaves him scrambling for an upcoming hearing.

When Chris is filing a motion challenging something the police did, he needs an accurate record of statements. But wading through hours of video to find the one-minute exchange with an officer is slow and inefficient. “That is so hard to do if you’re just doing it yourself, trying to make a transcript of a relevant part,” he added.

Similarly, when an expert witness is brought on to the trial team, catching them up on the case history is tedious, but giving them access to interviews and evidence lets them bring themselves up to speed.

Reduct.Video implementation and impact

Chris’ staff uploads all the footage for a case to Reduct as soon as it is available.

AI transcripts are produced almost immediately, which allow him to extract quotes from the footage to include in any motions to suppress that he might be filing.

As Chris explained:

“When I'm doing a motion, like I'm challenging something the police did, a lot of times it comes down to what was said. It's great for me to be able to just cut and paste out of a transcript and say, ‘This is what was said.’”

He’ll also typically email the relevant pieces of transcripts to the judge and prosecutor as soon as the evidence comes in. So although the AI transcripts aren’t admissible in court, this process helps to speed up the case.

As trial approaches, he is able to extract video clips from the video using Reduct’s text-based editing features, add slides between clips for context, and export reels with captions, all without needing any technical video-editing skills.

“I just had a DUI trial about a month ago [...] and we were going to do the trial by Zoom and [the judge] wanted the exhibits including the video submitted ahead of time. So I made a copy and submitted it to him.”

These video exhibits are admissible and routinely help him win cases. That’s one savvy criminal defense lawyer!

“

I recommend Reduct to everybody. It has really improved my practice. It's really been helpful!

Reduct.Video: Key features for The Angles Law Firm

Transcription

Accessing relevant evidence with timestamped transcripts

DUI, bodycam, and patrol footage often come in DVDs, Blu-rays, and thumb drives, in formats usually not admissible in court. Without the right software, this can create headaches and extra work.

With Reduct, Chris can easily upload the footage and access it through a browser along with accurate time-stamped AI transcriptions. This allows for a quick review within minutes of uploading the evidence.

Finding case-making evidence from a text-based log

Reduct’s transcripts help find exact moments with a simple search that pulls up all instances of the search term and relevant parts within a project.

Intricate legal arguments can be buried within investigation footage. Reduct’s interactive transcripts enable Chris to read through the transcripts and jump directly to relevant sections of the investigation.

Video Exhibits

Clipping real dialogues to build a strong case

Pulling exact statements from different parts of the record and presenting them together as one piece of evidence makes your argument much stronger.

Reduct allows Chris to clip the exact dialogue from the transcripts and include it in his motion. By creating these exhibits with title slides that include timestamps, Reduct helps to strengthen the argument.

Exports

Making varied evidence formats admissible in court.

Reduct supports the preparation of jury presentations by providing court-formatted transcript exports and downloadable captioned videos.

Chris has been using Reduct to print out the transcript directly, which he uses while cross-examining police officers or witnesses:

“In a fairly recent jury trial I had, there were some really kind of intricate legal arguments on parts of the video that would be admissible or not admissible. And it was fantastic to be able to just email that transcript made instantly to the court and the prosecutor.”

He also lets his client reread to make sure it was exactly right on the transcript. This preparation helps provide a clear and accurate representation of the events in court.

By leveraging Artificial Intelligence to alleviate the pain point of too-much evidence and not-enough people hours, Reduct lets defense lawyers focus their energies on defending the public.