From WAMU Radio in Washington, DC:

Police Said She Had An Open

Container. Her Lawyer Asked

For Body Camera Video.

Last month, defense attorney George Lyon picked up the type of case that doesn't really make the news. His client had been arrested in Northeast D.C. while visiting friends in her old neighborhood, and charged with possessing an open container of alcohol.

"So I said, 'Well, were the officers wearing body cams?' And she said yes. And I said, 'Well, then let’s get the body cam evidence and see what it shows.' So I asked the prosecutor for the body cam evidence, and it took about a week to get it," says Lyon, who works with Virginia-based Arsenal Attorneys.

“You can see from the video it wasn't sitting by her at all," Lyon says of one of the alcohol containers police alleged she was drinking from when she was arrested.

"So you wonder, why did my client get charged? And apparently she was unhappy with the situation and was saying something to the officer. At minute nine in the body cam tape, he says, 'Do you have an attitude?' And she says, 'Yes, I have an attitude.' Which prompted him to arrest her for having an attitude and charging her for something that she didn’t do," he says.

The charge against Lyon's client, who he declined to name to protect her privacy, was dropped.

Police forces across the country are outfitting officers with body-worn cameras. In D.C., some 1,300 police officers are already using them, and by the end of the year that number is expected to grow to 2,400. The rationale for the cameras has always been that they'll offer an objective record of what happened, providing a tool for holding police accountable and rebuilding trust with communities that have grown distrustful of police.

And with the sheer number of cameras now in use in D.C. — and the amount of footage they collect — that means more of it is filtering into run-of-the-mill criminal cases like the one involving Lyon's client.

"We're starting to get it in a lot of cases now," says John Copacino, who directs the Criminal Justice Clinic at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Copacino says one of the biggest benefits of the footage — in cases big and small — is that it minimizes the reliance on he-said, she-said testimony that can often be unreliable.

"Before, everything was dependent on witness testimony, either from the police or eye witnesses or defendants," he says.

In many cases, he says, the cameras can help police and prosecutors, especially when a decreasing trust in police could affect a jury's willingness to convict. Research has also found that the cameras can simplify an officer's job. In the United Kingdom, officers using the cameras experienced a 22 percent decline in officer time devoted to paperwork and a 9 percent increase in time spent on patrol — roughly 50 more minutes over the course of a nine-hour shift.

Copacino says one of the challenges defense attorneys are facing is getting access to the footage. While D.C. law allows someone who is charged with a crime to view body-worn camera footage in preparation of their defense, prosecutors are allowed to screen and redact the footage.

"They believe that they need to screen their videos for privacy. They're feeling their way on how to do that now," says Copacino. In a case he's taking to trial today, he got three hours of footage — yesterday. "[Prosecutors] asked for blanket protection order in the use of the body-worn camera video, and we're not agreeing to those. But as a result of their being behind on this stuff, we're getting things right now very late."

And there's an additional challenge the emerged in the wake of the police-involved shooting of motorcyclist Terrence Sterling last month: the D.C. police officer who shot Sterling only turned on his camera after firing his gun, leaving no video record of the circumstances that led up to the fatal incident.

The office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. — which prosecutes most crimes in the city, though not minor charges like open container, which is handled by the D.C. Attorney General — says prosecutors haven't used body-worn camera footage in many cases yet. Copacino says the technology is early in its adoption phase, and he expects footage to play a bigger role in more cases as the years pass.

As for Lyon's client, he says that while her charge was minor, she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. Even with an offer to take a guilty plea and accept only the time already served — a night in jail — Lyon says his client wanted to fight the charge.

“Was this a big case? No, not a big case at all," he says. "But she wasn’t about to take a plea of guilty when she said she was innocent and the evidence proves it."