> Why isn't it standard for all body cam footage of an arrest to automatically be entered as evidence? It seems like even for a judge to accept a plea deal, th

> Why isn't it standard for all body cam footage of an arrest to automatically be entered as evidence? It seems like even for a judge to accept a plea deal, they should be forced to see the footage. Someone should be catching things as clear as this. Because they don't have an incentive to do so and have every incentive to not do so. I won't go into a great deal of detail, but in short: getting this as discovery without an attorney present and actively forcing the Courts to release it won't yield much, it is often entirely impossible to do so in time by the forced court dates forcing most people to accept plea deals if they cannot afford legal counsel, getting even the District Attorneys to review this footage before moving with a case in time of said case is equally unlikely (combination of apathetic and being overwhelmed), and Judges' will ALWAYS favour with an officers recount of events UNTIL FORCED for compelling reasons to over turn this. Which means an almost certain guilty verdict. Discovery in general is so hard to get, and they can/do use a series of excuses; not limited to using proprietary software to release the body cam footage which is not compatible with any other system. Even between other attorneys and jurisdictions. You need to realize that you're assumed to be guilty in the Legal system, and the burden and responsibility to prove otherwise is on the defendant: who is possibly injured (physically as well as mentally), all the while you're incurring costs left and right for everything (even wrongful arrest cases), in addition to apathetic-callused District Attorneys/Public Defendants just trying to bide their time and not 'rock the boat' until getting to the next level of their careers and are often forcing people to just accept untenable time frames for court dates or pleas deals to just churn the numbers and look good in front of the Judge who they will encounter again in their career(s).