SMITH COUNTY, Texas — An overload of data, difficulty sharing and time-consuming were the concerns Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman and others shared with the Smith County Commissioners during Tuesday's meeting.
“You have rural law enforcement entities that have to drive things in, bring things and they get lost, they get misplaced," TechShare.Prosecutor program director Charles Gray said.
The problem would sometimes cause issues involving court cases, which is one of the reasons the commissioners approved a contract for a new electronic discovery program, TechShare.Prosecutor.
"All those exhibits and all those documents can easily be put up on the screen through this E-Discovery," County Judge Nathaniel Moran said.
Currently, the DA and Sheriff’s Offices use DVDs, flash drives, or hard drives to share information. The new program will make everything digital from electronic case filing, logging discovery documents, monitoring plea deals, sharing body cam video, and more.
"It's also photographs, it's also 911 recordings, it's anything that's electronic," Gray said.
As soon as police upload something with TechShare.Prosecutor, it is immediately available to the DA’s office. Gray says in a presentation to the commissioners, the documents are tracked for a 'chain of custody.'
Moran hopes it will save more than just time.
"Other counties that have instituted this E-Discovery program have found that there is a shorter time frame for getting folks through the judicial system and in fact it saves them a lot of money,” Moran explained. “As well as keeping those individuals in their county jails during that process."
The program will cost the county less than $42,000 a year and will be paid for through the general fund.
"Which are really minimal in light of the amount of money that we're going to be saving," Moran said.
The DA and Sherriff’s Offices will be paying a one-time fee of about $34,000 for the program’s installation.
TechShare.Prosecutor is also used in 19 other counties in Texas, including Dallas and Tarrant County.