Prosecutor and public defender urge Eaton County to adopt Axon Premier Plus for shared discovery

Eaton County prosecutors and public defenders told the Ways & Means Committee that upgrading to Axon Premier Plus will reduce duplicated work and help staff review evidence faster.

"When the sheriff moved to Premier Plus ... our people have to actually take that link. They have to open it up. They then have to manually upload all of the information into CARPEL," Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd said, describing the current duplication of effort. He said the Premier Plus integration will allow immediate flow of evidence into the county's case system and enable tools that can search video for relevant moments. "We have over 7,000 open cases. We received over 300 new cases last month," Lloyd added, saying efficiencies are needed to handle the workload.

Matt, a representative of the public defender's office, told commissioners the shared system would help both offices access the same discovery without manual transfers. "AI is a great starting point. It's not the end point," he said, urging caution that staff still must verify any AI results.

Commissioners asked about costs and legal safeguards. Lloyd said the sheriff's department will carry most of the license cost in the current period and that the prosecutor's and public defender's offices planned to include the recurring expense in their next budget cycle. He and the public defender's representative emphasized that human review remains required: the AI tools are an aid to find likely evidence more quickly, not to replace attorney judgment.

The committee moved and supported a referral to the full board so the county can consider adopting Premier Plus for prosecutor and defender access and begin implementation planning. The committee discussion noted the county's AI policy and the need to keep humans in the decision loop for charging and charging determinations.

The item will be presented to the full board with cost estimates and implementation steps.