Frank Ready of Legaltech news analyzed the technical and operational challenge of ingesting terrabytes of electronic evidence, distributed all over the country and on every platform, for the trials of the January 6th defendants.
While the United States Department of Justice (US-DOJ) is continuing to collect the evidence, it has a timebound obligation to provide the evidence to the defendants to use in their trials. Ready concludes that the (US) DOJ Faces ‘Biggest Prosecutorial Mashup in Modern Times’ in Capitol Insurrection E-Discovery.
Craig Ball, EDRM’s general counsel, often a critic of institutional eDiscovery practices, stated that he is “really quite impressed” with what he has seen the DOJ accomplish.
They [US-DOJ] appear to me to be taking seriously their obligation to provide both inculpatory and exculpatory information.
Craig Ball
Ready’s analysis includes details previously overlooked: Deloitte will be hosting the data ($6.1m contract) and that evidence presented to the grand juries can not be included in that database.
With the volume and variety of social posts capturing the activity of those in the background in addition to the poster, the DOJ has a different challenge according to Anna Mercado Clark, a partner at Phillips Lytle.
It seems as if there was a collection of data and only now are [the DOJ] trying to make heads or tails and kind of look at it from the big picture standpoint, as opposed to looking at pockets of data as they pertain to a particular individual.
Anna Mercado Clark, partner at Phillips Lytle.
Doug Austin of eDiscoveryToday covered Ready’s analysis stating in regards to Craig Ball’s assessment that the DOJ is providing both inculpatory and exculpatory information and is treating their obligation seriously:
With 506 cases (and counting), they had better be. And, they had better be proficient in using the technology too.
Doug Austin, eDiscoverytoday
Doug Austin’s article is here.
Frank Ready’s article, with more observations and comments, is here.
