Bringing Digital Evidence into the Courtroom
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In last month’s landmark settlement, the City of New York agreed to pay over $13 million to a group of 1,380 protestors who “were arrested and/or subjected to force by N.Y.P.D. officers” in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the summer of 2020. The proposed settlement marks “the largest total payout to protesters in a class-action suit in the United States,” according to Akela Lacy at The Intercept. The plaintiffs won the case, at least in part, thanks to the work of SITU Research, a group that conducts visual investigations and “merges data and design to create new pathways for justice.” SITU Research’s work supports activists, advocates, and lawyers, bridging the gap between digital evidence and the communities that can best deploy them towards justice and accountability.
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Brad Samuels, a founding partner at SITU who has overseen the team’s visual investigations for legal and advocacy organizations including The International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, The Associated Press, Frontline, The United Nations, and many others. They discussed why forensic reconstructions and other visual investigations are so useful in the pursuit of justice for war crimes and other abuses, how Samuels and his colleagues build them, and some of the pushback they get. They also talked about the thorny new questions these new technologies raise, including the dangers of retraumatizing victims.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.8 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. It is true that the people doing the work you know |
| 0:36.1 | may come from visual arts backgrounds or they may come from filmmaking and you know |
| 0:41.6 | their entire education was around aesthetic questions so I don't think you can remove |
| 0:45.8 | that completely from the equation but I think for us it's it's remaining absolutely clear |
| 0:50.7 | on the destination being the courtroom and in the service of addressing the facts of |
| 0:57.9 | the case in that context. I'm Tyler McBrigham, managing editor of LawFair and this is |
| 1:04.0 | the LawFair podcast August 1st, 2023. In last month's landmark settlement the city of |
| 1:10.3 | New York agreed to pay over $13 million to a group of 1,380 protesters who are arrested |
| 1:16.1 | and are subjected to force by NYPD officers in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the summer of 2020. |
| 1:21.6 | The proposed settlement marks the largest total payout to protesters in a class action |
| 1:25.3 | suit in the United States according to a Kela Lacey at the intercept. The plaintiffs |
| 1:29.8 | won the case at least in part thanks to the work of City Research a group that conducts |
| 1:34.1 | visual investigations and quote merges data and design to create new pathways for justice |
| 1:38.8 | according to their website. City Research's work supports activists, advocates and lawyers |
| 1:44.0 | bridging the gap between digital evidence and the communities that can best deploy them |
| 1:47.7 | towards justice and accountability. I sat down with Brad Samuels, a founding partner |
| 1:52.3 | at CITU who has overseen the team's visual investigations for legal and advocacy organizations |
| 1:57.5 | including the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the |
| 2:01.3 | United Nations and many others. We discussed why forensic reconstructions and other |
... |
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