CASE STUDY

Beyond the Dashcam: 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 charges and other allegations at all stages in the federal, state, juvenile and municipal 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 deals with means Chris cannot possibly watch everything.

This often leaves him scrambling when a hearing is coming up.

When Chris is doing a motion and challenging something the police did, a lot of times it comes down to what was said. Having to wade through hours of video and then find the one-minute interaction with a cop, then try to write out what was said exactly word for word in his motion is a slow and inefficient process.

Similarly, when an expert is brought on to help with a jury trial, catching them up on the case history is a time-consuming process, but giving them access to any interviews and evidence let’s them bring themselves up to speed.

Reduct.Video Implementation & 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.

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. Unlike the AI generated transcripts, these video exhibits are admissible and routinely help him win cases. That’s one savvy criminal defense lawyer!

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

Reduct.Video: Key Features for Angles Law Firm

Transcription

Accessing relevant evidence with time stamped 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 to play these on a computer, they can be almost useless.

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 are often buried within parts of the investigation footage. Reduct’s interactive transcripts enable Chris to read through the transcripts and jump directly to the relevant part of the investigation.

Video Exhibits

Clipping real dialogues to build a strong case

Showcasing exact statements from multiple instances, put together as a single piece of evidence, greatly increases your argument’s reliability.

“Being precise like this is really good for credibility.”

Reduct allows Chris to clip the exact dialogue from the transcripts and include it in his motion, often incorporating a block quote from the specific moment.

By creating these exhibits with separators and 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.

Reduct is very powerful when it comes to presenting the video exhibits with the spoken word in the video as captions.

Chris has been using Reduct to print out the transcript directly, which he uses while cross-examining police officers or witnesses. He also lets the defendant 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 painpoint of too-much evidence and not-enough people hours, Reduct lets defense lawyers focus their energies on defending the public.