6-related defendants, still acknowledged that the e-discovery experience will ultimately benefit their work. Lawyers with complaints, like Kira West who took on more than 20 Jan. They found it was often difficult to digest and mine for potential proof that, for example, police encouraged their clients to enter the Capitol. 6 defense lawyers were reluctant to praise DOJ for offering far more evidence than they’re legally obligated to turn over. “They have a lot of things that they’ve learned from this on how to organize massive complex cases, how to provide that information to the attorneys, how to create platforms for easy access to e-discovery,” Rossi said. But attorneys like Rossi, who normally experience e-discovery hurdles as a white-collar practitioner, see a blueprint for DOJ to maintain. 6 generated a degree of evidence transparency that may never be replicated. In certain respects, the historic nature of Jan. “I did get the sense that we really are all trying to get to the same page in terms of what exists, how it exists, where it exists, and why,” she said. It’s not my job to trust them,” said Angie Halim, an attorney for Joseph Hackett, a member of the far-right Oath Keepers group convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 42 months in prison.īut upon making numerous requests for assistance navigating the evidence database, “I didn’t get the cagey sense that I often get from prosecutors,” Halim said. “I don’t trust what the government says, period. While some defense lawyers grouse about an inability to locate camera angles to potentially exonerate their clients, they also appreciate that prosecutors are willing to help. An additional 30,634 files were on, she said. There were more than 5 million individual documents uploaded on the Deloitte-run site using Relativity software as of June 1, said Nicole Cubbage, who’s become an e-discovery specialist while working as an attorney on more than 20 Jan. Millions of videos, texts, social media posts getting uploaded to the Deloitte site and to on a rolling basis has stalled cases for many of the more than 1,000 people charged. 6 lifted the e-discovery challenge to new heights. Voluminous matters can challenge lawyers to mount a well-informed defense while exposing prosecutors to potential discovery missteps that could lead to dismissals and career-tarnishing sanctions.Ĭorporate crime practitioners, who undergo onerous discovery after the government seizes employee smartphones and office hard drives, say cultivating good will is tough when defense lawyers often suspect prosecutors have something to hide and prosecutors worry they’ll be accused of misconduct. E-Discovery WoesĮven before the 2021 riot, exploding levels of digitally-stored evidence in a range of criminal investigations had bogged down discovery. While imperfect, the collaborative approach is showing returns, according to interviews with 14 lawyers and others on both sides of the Jan. The government fears those who allegedly committed crimes at the Capitol could walk free if prosecutors unwittingly withheld evidence, while defense lawyers struggle to find relevant videos of their clients’ movements buried inside the footage collected from various sources. Prosecutors gave him an early heads up on where he could find clips of his client traversing the Capitol grounds, Rossi said.Ĭounterbalancing tensions have forced an unexpected cooperation among foes. The Carlton Fields shareholder, who still called the government’s tactics aggressive and plans to appeal after sentencing, said it would’ve been impossible for him to single-handedly review a database with videos totaling 250 days in length. “This investigation is a great starting point, and a template for federal prosecutors to follow in all of their future cases,” said Gene Rossi, a veteran former prosecutor who represented an Oath Keeper convicted of obstructing an official proceeding. 6 cases could become a model for reducing antagonism and exchanging electronic evidence in a variety of litigation contexts, lawyers involved say. The pre-trial mandatory document disclosure-or discovery-process in such contentious Jan. The software, along with a separate cloud-based system, allows lawyers to organize and share what DOJ has called an unprecedented amount of surveillance, police camera footage, and other digital evidence from the insurrection. 6 Capitol attack have forged an unlikely collaboration in sorting through 5 million electronic files.īoth sides rely largely on a web-based platform built by Deloitte in coordination with the Justice Department and federal public defenders. Prosecutors and attorneys representing defendants charged with participating in the Jan.
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