Hays County approves five-year Axon Justice storage contract for prosecutor discovery and evidence management

The Hays County Commissioners Court voted to authorize a five-year, $570,477.60 contract with Axon Enterprises to use Axon Justice as the county's storage and management system for law-enforcement video and related digital evidence.

Greg Cox, the criminal first assistant for the District Attorney's Office, told the court the contract will allow near-seamless transfer of evidence from local law-enforcement Axon systems into the county's TechShare prosecutor discovery portal. "There's no manual uploading of these petabytes of video," Cox said, describing an API connection that will move evidence automatically into the county's discovery workflow. He said the system includes built-in redaction tools, automatic voice-to-text transcription and will reduce the need for court-reporter transcription and repeated, manual file transfers.

Purchasing staff said the contract would be executed under an existing cooperative purchasing agreement covering Axon products and that the county had reviewed pricing and process details. Commissioners who spoke in favor cited efficiency and reductions in staff hours previously needed to prepare discovery packages.

Vote: The court approved the Axon Justice contract on a roll-call vote: Commissioner Cohen, yes; Commissioner Hammer, yes; Commissioner Inglesby, yes; Commissioner Smith, yes; Judge Becerra, yes.

Ending: County staff said the Axon integration should reduce discovery backlogs and yield ongoing administrative savings, and that staff reductions originally contemplated for manual discovery tasks would be re-evaluated as the platform comes online.