A NEW ERA OF OPENNESS? Matthew Gamette-Idaho State Police Forensic Services

Who? Virginia North Carolina Indiana Idaho (Arkansas, FBI, others…)

Idaho Story  Management Review Improvement Idea  Transparency  Proud of our manuals  Leadership  Breath Alcohol (already posting manuals and other…)  Requests for manuals from other labs trying for ISO  MFRC process mapping for online electronic submission forms and putting lab reports online  Burdensome discovery and PRR  Requests for same items

Initial Analyst Response  Fear of unknown:  court (my testimony be harder)  defense (they will compare the manuals)  public (will there be more scrutiny)  Skeptical of time savings and implementation

Idaho Implementation  Website redesign (CPM project)  IT help  No internal/external website capability  Access to post to the external website  Securing documents  Revision dates  Day 1—this date forward for archives  All disciplines AMs, quality/operation manuals, breath alcohol instrument calibration, officer training certificates, training manuals, accreditation

Expect the Unexpected  Day 2 visit with ISP command staff  Defense community scrutiny of documents  Calls from customers  Watermark issue  Mixed response from prosecutors  Time it takes to edit/secure/post the information

Positives…  Transparency  PRR certification example  Public defender project averted  Analyst time savings on discovery requests  Virtually eliminated public record requests  More educated questions in court  Less cat and mouse for documents  Customer traffic to our website

Challenges  New idea to the courts  watermark, electronic notary, electronic records  Motions to dismiss based on AM changes

What’s next…  Online submission of evidence  Better online reporting and agency notification  COMPLETE CASE ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY  FORESIGHT accountability numbers

Virginia  Started in an effort for transparency  General fear and trepidation--sky did not fall  Good feedback from customers  No repercussions  Other forensic scientists use them for accreditation  No problems with court  Scientists feared being more challenged in court  Training manuals online as well—but not getting many questions  Openness has been positive  Customers understand what methods they can and cannot perform from the website

Virginia  Some labs borrowing heavily and just replacing the header  Still finding a significant amount of discovery for documents  Keeping them up to date is key—not automated  Web posting is checklist item for document revision  Web hosted by another state agency

North Carolina  Response to the issues they had a few years ago  To aid with defense and lots of records requests  The most current controlled copy on the intranet— QM updates the external based on availability

North Carolina  Forensic Science advisory board goes online to look at documents  Encourage the public to access the documents and the lab responds to the public feedback (unintended benefit)  Favorable impression from the public (local people) and people from other agencies and defense attorneys (openness)

North Carolina  Difficult to update them on the website (Qualtrax will help with that—RFP out at this time)  QM gets calls from public saying they cannot download the document so they have to fix things on the web (forgot to link or incorrect link)  Have to address all the public comments  No change for the analysts testimony  Don’t think the attorneys are using them any more  No more discovery games

North Carolina  Everything is heavily reviewed by internal lawyers  Agency lawyers set the format and protocol  Amazed at how open the lab system is  Discovery is not an issue  Lab has nothing to hide  Proud of their documents  It allows them to examine the document and get some feedback on better ways to do things  Audit reports also go online and attorney’s review, but external audits get posted as written

Indiana  Driven by discovery, transparency, and customer service  Have been uploading for several years  Based for law enforcement and the courts  Customers appreciated the submission forms and physical evidence documents online

Indiana  Fewer defense requests for discovery  Very positive customer feedback  Generic manuals online but will not be putting audit reports or corrective actions online  Time savings for analysts and management

Indiana  Automatic hyperlinked and updated—no additional work to keep the documents current

Take Home…  More positives than negatives  Fears mostly don’t materialize  Viewed as transparent and customer driven  Beware of the technical challenges  Efficiency tool  As labs share ideas openly, we all get better!