The cost and time required to conduct electronic discovery in recent years has skyrocketed, and Colorado lawmakers have taken notice.
A bipartisan group of legislators introduced Senate Bill 25-240, which creates a task force to study the costs and management of eDiscovery in criminal cases. The measure is an effort of the Joint Budget Committee, and it has been fast-tracked through the legislature.
Democrats Sen. Jeff Bridges and Rep. Shannon Bird and Republicans Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart shepherded the bill quickly through the legislature, from a formal introduction date of March 31 to its final passage on April 10.
Bird told the House that the task force would be required to submit findings and recommendations to the committee by Nov. 1, including legislative proposals for containing future costs.
“With the advent of body cameras, there are increasing costs associated with storage and then also review with every case,” said Bird. “Whether this is impacting our district attorneys, whether it’s impacting our public defender’s office, any agency that is tasked with reviewing or storing body cam footage and making this part of discovery, the costs are ballooning across state government.”
“This is a bill that is crafted in great collaboration with all stakeholders that are impacted by these costs who want to be thoughtful and figure out, how do we rein them in? How do we effectively manage data and not blow up the state’s budget?” Bird added.
The task force would be composed of 13 members and headed by the executive director of the Colorado District Attorney Council or a chosen designee.
The only hiccup in the bill’s progress through the legislature came at the bill’s second reading in the house, when a small group of representatives asked that the bill be moved to the House Judiciary committee for further review. The bill went through the appropriations committees of both chambers.
Republican Rep. Ryan Armagost said that he thought the bill needed a lot more scrutiny and oversight.
Bird, in response to that motion, said that stakeholders from every impacted agency had already weighed in. “As our bipartisan support for this bill indicates, this is not a controversial bill,” Bird said. “There is nothing suspect in here.”
Taggart noted that the digital files being created were requiring multiple terabytes of new storage each week. “And this is strictly a situation where we’re asking all of the departments where this affects to get together in a room and determine, is there a more cost-effective method of storing this amount of data?” Taggart said.
Reps. Stephanie Luck, Carlos Barron and Matt Soper all joined in on Armagost’s request to bring the bill to the judiciary committee.
“This should be a bill that is heard through Judiciary, because this is such an important issue for our criminal justice stakeholders that to have this come through appropriations only, I would say, runs afoul of the system,” Soper said.
The motion failed, but Barron, Armagost, Luck and Soper did vote yes on the bill’s final reading in the House. If Gov. Jared Polis signs off on the measure, the task force will begin its work to report its findings by Nov. 1.