Security Conversations: Talking prosecutor discovery with Kevin Petroff, Assistant DA for Galveston County

At the Galveston County District Attorney’s (DA) Office, Kevin Petroff is a First Assistant DA. Working closely with the Galveston Sherriff’s Office, his team works to prosecute criminal cases every day. Part of that job involves overseeing the collection, management, and sharing of evidence for each case.

Recently, we caught up with Kevin about how his DA’s Office upgraded their discovery process using Genetec Clearance™. In the Q&A below, he shares why they needed to find a better way to manage and share evidence, how regulatory changes motivated them to make the move, and why Genetec offers the best evidence management solution on the market.

Q: What was your discovery process like before you invested in Genetec Clearance?  

Before Genetec Clearance, we were doing things the old-fashioned way. When a case was filed, we would make a request for evidence and send an officer out to pick up the evidence from the agency connected to the case. The officer would make a physical copy of the evidence, either on DVDs or flash drives, and then we would make copies of our copies to share with defense attorneys.  

We’re usually dealing with evidence from body-worn cameras, in-car cameras, street cameras, doorbell cameras, but every interview is also done on video. So for every felony prosecution, there’s at least one or two videos alongside other items like scene or autopsy photographs. Even with vehicular crimes, there’s a lot of data collected for accident reconstruction. 

Before Genetec Clearance, we were spending a lot of money on handling CDs and flash drives. And sharing evidence meant we were standing at the copier and copying disc after disc after disc of all this itemized evidence. All that evidence would eventually get filed in boxes and stored in warehouses. 

Q: When the laws changed in 2014, how did that impact your discovery process? 

In 2014, some significant changes were made to discovery and criminal law where the District Attorney’s Office would not only need to share all items of evidence with defense attorneys, but we also had to prove, at the end of any case, what was turned over and when.  

Before this, we were making defense attorneys sign for evidence, which meant we had to track them down, physically hand them the copies of evidence, and have them sign a document that said that they've received all these videos. And you know, they're just looking at a bunch of disks not knowing what's on there. So, there was a lot of confusion, especially if things got lost on either side. And there were allegations that we weren't turning things over, which can lead to serious consequences in the case.  

Either both sides had to agree that everything was turned over, or there had to be a hearing on it and the judge would have to make findings. And the fear was that if someone pled and then later said, ‘Wait, I never got this.’, then they would undo that plea agreement and there was potentially no finality to the case.  

These were important regulatory changes. And they were enacted because some prosecutors had hidden evidence in certain cases, leading to false convictions of innocent people. So the changes were necessary, but it was also a pretty terrifying time to suddenly have to come up with protocols to deal with all these changes while criminal cases we're still rolling in at the same rate.  

And this came at a time when we started seeing more body camera videos, in-car videos, video statements, and things of that nature. All of a sudden in 2014, the DA’s Office got hit with a massive amount of discovery, and we were struggling, as were most Texas DA Offices, with how to deal with that. 

Q: What were the main reasons for choosing Genetec Clearance?  

Part of our decision to move ahead with Genetec Clearance was because it was cost-efficient for the County. And while we did look at other companies that were branching into discovery for prosecution offices, they hadn't gotten that far in the development process. So many solutions were still in the early phases of development and the vendors were still trying to figure it all out. The team at Genetec seemed confident that could deliver a solution. 

We were also working with over 28 different law enforcement agencies. And many of them had their own proprietary video or evidence software. So, everybody was not only storing things differently but also submitting evidence to us in different ways and formats.  

One of the things we liked most about Genetec Clearance was the agencies could submit that evidence to us free of charge, without any trouble. They didn't have to purchase additional software or subscribe to the Genetec solution. We could simply send them the link which they could use to upload the evidence and send it back to us. That was a huge benefit. Today, most agencies are submitting the evidence to us that way using Clearance. 

Q: How has Clearance helped you better manage the discovery process? 

Using Clearance, we can send links to defense attorneys with all the items of discovery that we need to send them. We can also restrict access to pieces of evidence that we can’t send, such as child forensic interviews, which is important.  

We also wanted to be able to quickly show what evidence was sent to the defense, without having to manually compile a list. And part of that became then well, how do you name files? How do you handle folders and what's in each folder? And there was a lot of back and forth to kind of streamline our evidence management process.  

Working with Genetec Clearance, we can now, at the click of a button, produce a list of evidence that has been turned over and when it was turned over. If there’s any type of dispute over that, we can also establish when, if ever, the evidence was downloaded, or looked at by the defense counsel. And this information automatically populates on our official letterhead.  

Should the defense decide that they want to take a plea agreement, we can hit a button and make all that happen very quickly. So, Clearance has been a huge help to us and we’ve been very happy with our decision to invest in the evidence management solution.  

Tired of handling prosecution discovery the old-fashioned way?  

Copying evidence to disks creates roadblocks in prosecution, jeopardizes cases, and simply isn’t secure. That’s why forward-thinking DA’s Offices today are doing things differently. 

Alongside Sheriff’s Offices, County DA’s Offices are investing in Clearance to collect and share evidence quickly and securely. By doing this, they can also maintain a clear and well-documented chain of custody to ensure valuable evidence is always admissible in court.