The cuyahoga county prosecutor's office (ccpo) seeks to increase the efficiency of body-worn camera (BWC) and digital evidence in-take, processing, and external sharing of the evidence by implementing…

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office (CCPO) received a $798,367 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) under the Body Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program (CFDA 16.835). The funding will enable CCPO to implement a digital evidence management solution to increase the efficiency of processing and sharing body-worn camera (BWC) and other digital evidence across over 8,000 criminal cases annually. The grant will support the purchase of digital evidence management licenses, creation of a digital evidence staging server, and hiring of two digital evidence paralegals. This solution is expected to expedite the intake, processing, and sharing of digital evidence with justice partners, including defense counsel, thereby eliminating the need for lengthy duplication processes currently handled via flash drives. The grant performance period is from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2027.

The cuyahoga county prosecutor's office (ccpo) seeks to increase the efficiency of body-worn camera (BWC) and digital evidence in-take, processing, and external sharing of the evidence by implementing a grant funded digital evidence management solution. Ccpo's current digital evidence management is at capacity and needs to be upgraded to meet the increasing storage requirements of data received on each case as well as the duplication requirements for making the evidence available in discovery in over 8,000 criminal cases a year. Ccpos proposed digital evidence solution requires a faster external internet connection, the purchase of digital evidence management licenses (including cellebrite guardian), the creation of a staging server for digital evidence transfers, and the hiring of two digital evidence paralegals. Under the solution, all BWC and digital evidence will be received by the staging server where IT will be marked and tagged by digital evidence paralegals and entered into the upload queue. Members of the digital evidence management team will then upload all digital evidence from this server over a dedicated internet line to a shared environment. This digital evidence solution will increase the speed with which evidence is received by ccpo and shared with justice partners, including defense counsel. Prosecutors and defense counsel will benefit from this solution by eliminating the need for lengthy duplication of evidence that is currently being done with flash drives and offering all parties almost immediate access to evidence and creating an auditable trail.