I used to track cell phone location information for prosecutors. My experience illustrates the overwhelming need for better technical resources for defense attorneys.

[Commentary] I used to track cell phone location information for prosecutors. My experience illustrates the overwhelming need for better technical resources for defense attorneys.

There are few things as riveting — and damning — in a courtroom as a really nice graphic that suggests a defendant was right by the scene of a crime when the crime took place. Judges and juries would stare intently as I introduced my maps, and defendants’ faces would fall. When it came time for defense attorneys to cross-examine me, they struggled to produce cutting questions. Underwater as they were with incredibly heavy caseloads, little or no technical expertise, and few of the analytical resources that the prosecution had, the defense attorneys I encountered in court invariably were forced to cross-examine me without having performed an independent analysis of the data.

We have to figure out how to deal with the growing challenges faced by defense attorneys who increasingly lack the necessary technical expertise to mount a defense. Among other things, defense attorneys are going to need the resources and trainings to develop their own technical expertise, as well as funding to hire outside experts when the need arises. And policymakers need to recognize that when they support law enforcement agencies’ acquisition of and access to advanced tech tools, they must support parallel enhancements for defense attorneys. Otherwise the already-long odds against criminal defendants — especially indigent defendants — will become completely insurmountable.

[Laura Moy is a public interest tech policy lawyer and Deputy Director at Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology]