McHenry County State’s Attorney’s office embraces AI in investigations, ‘automated case building’

The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s office could be using AI to help it build cases.

The office is switching over to the cloud-based NICE Justice system, according to a county release sent Tuesday. The system allows investigators to upload evidence, which gets added to a digital case file and is immediately available to attorneys, according to the release.

The system also has AI-generated features including facial detection, “automated case building” and finding evidence connections, among other things, according to the release.

“Our office especially appreciates the AI capabilities and investigative tools that are built into NICE Justice, such as the ability to index and transform PDF files into searchable documents, and evidence tagging, and transcription,” Jorge Enciso, the legal technology division supervisor, said in the release. “Making these capabilities universally available to attorneys will deepen the quality of our investigations and prosecutions.”

Digital evidence “is playing a growing role in prosecutions,” according to the release. Most of that evidence, which includes things like CCTV and body cam footage and social media posts, comes on discs and thumb drives, according to the release.

Attorneys and staff won’t have to deal with discs, drives, emails and logging into multiple systems to manage evidence, according to the release.

“Our goal is the ethical pursuit of justice. We have a duty to seek the truth above all else, and that truth is often revealed through digital evidence,” newly elected McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi Freese said in the release. “However, as our law enforcement partners adopt more digital systems, digital evidence is becoming increasingly difficult to collect, analyze, understand and share through conventional means. NICE Justice is going to help us find the truth in digital evidence faster and work more efficiently with our law enforcement partners as we pursue justice for victims.”

According to the NICE website, McHenry County is the third state’s attorney’s office in Illinois to use the software.