Understanding Wrongful Convictions and the Journey to Exoneration
On average, wrongfully convicted individuals serve up to 14 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. The journey to exoneration is extensive, expensive, and complicated, most often taking years – even decades – to achieve.
Numerous factors such as the age of the case, availability of new evidence, ability to locate relevant documents, and the accessibility of witnesses all play a role in the time it takes to exonerate a client.
Each case the Montana Innocence Project takes on comes with unique challenges that require dedication and patience. Since our inception in 2008, MTIP’s work has successfully secured freedom for ten wrongfully incarcerated Montanans who collectively served more than 175 years for crimes they did not commit.
On average MTIP receives around 150 requests for assistance each year, and reviews hundreds of police reports, court filings and trial transcripts. To tackle this voluminous work, MTIP augments its small legal staff with contract legal assistants, clinical law students, volunteers, and pro bono attorneys.
How the Montana Innocence Project is using Generative AI for Case Investigation
To further maximize limited resources, MTIP has begun exploring the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Our early experiences indicate that this new technology will enhance the efficiency of our case document review process, which is often extensive and time-consuming. Since October of last year, we have been actively testing innovative AI platforms, such as Google Pinpoint, Justice Text, and ChatGPT Whimsical.
These advanced AI tools have allowed us to securely upload audio, PDF, and image files that function as advanced search engines and organizational tools. Google Pinpoint is a research tool intended for journalists, but MTIP has found functionality in using it to conduct simultaneous searches across multiple legal documents for specific keywords, themes, dates, and related contacts. Additionally, it can summarize case documents, transcribe client letters from handwriting to workable text, and meticulously organize evidence and witness information into comprehensive spreadsheets. ChatGPT Whimsical has also allowed us to apply public records into the chat to generate flowcharts that connect witnesses and evidence to clients’ cases.
MTIP’s legal team primarily utilizes generative AI tools for administrative and organizational tasks, but has not applied the technology for legal writing use at this time.
“There has been clear potential for using AI technology to make our lives easier,” MTIP interim Legal Director, Karl Pitcher said. “It has significantly improved our ability to locate relevant information within large sets of documents much more quickly, so that we can use that in the various stages of the investigation and litigation process more efficiently.”
Using Google Pinpoint AI technology has allowed the team to work more productively, freeing them to spend more time on substantive investigative tasks. For example, transcribing a petition for post conviction relief into text would have traditionally taken our team up to three days to finish, but can now be achieved almost instantly.
“I’ve found it to be really helpful when looking for specific dates or names of witnesses when looking at larger e-files,” MTIP Americorp Member, Waverly McIver shared. “It has also saved us a lot of time when transcribing audio or handwritten letters from clients.”
MTIP’s legal team sees potential for generative AI to transform the legal profession and innocence work alike by enhancing their efficiency and assisting with time-consuming work, but acknowledge that it still has a long way to go.
“If these tools continue to improve and allow for the processing of multiple case documents to generate a memo analysis that can summarize charges, key witnesses, and the individual’s argument for innocence, I think that that would be amazing because that is the majority of the work that we do currently,” Karl said. “The other thing is that at some point it could have the ability to write briefs, which could be pretty significant and definitely change the future of the legal profession.”
Post-conviction cases often involve extensive legal documentation due to the complex nature of multiple appeals, evidentiary submissions, and procedural histories that require thorough review and analysis. The sheer volume of these documents can be overwhelming, making it challenging for legal professionals to efficiently sort through and identify relevant information. AI proves uniquely beneficial in this context to organize, categorize, and extract pertinent data from large sets of documents. Although it is early to measure the precise impact that generative AI will have on MTIP’s work, our legal team hopes that it will allow us to take on more clients in the future and potentially overturn greater numbers of wrongful convictions in Montana.
As MTIP expands our use of AI technology, we will continue to update you with these new advancements!