HORRY COUNTY, SC (WBTW) – A local circuit court judge has ordered all police departments in Horry and Georgetown counties to improve how they store and transfer evidence to the Solicitor’s Office.

Judge Steven John met with more than a dozen local police chiefs in December to discuss high-tech evidence, such as body camera footage and cell phone records, after defense attorneys raised concerns about not having access to all the available evidence for a case. The judge gave the police departments, including Horry County, Myrtle Beach, Conway, and Surfside Beach, approximately a month to develop a plan to improve their operations.

Police departments are required to hand over all exculpatory information gathered during their investigations to the Solicitor’s Office, who then shares that with the defense. Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, who was also at that meeting, asserted neither his office nor any of the local police departments have been accused of misconduct. However, Richardson said they’re working to develop a standardized method for how police departments turn over evidence to the Solicitor’s office, to make sure all necessary information is included, and reaches the defense attorneys. The Solicitor would like police departments to “dump it all here and then we’ll figure out what we need to send to the defense attorney from what is in this room.”

According to Richardson, when defense attorneys request evidence in the middle of a trial, it can stall the case for months. “I need one more thing so I need a continuance. The next month, I need another continuance because I need that. What I would hope would happen from this, is that there wouldn’t be any more continuances.” He also said technology has expanded the pool of evidence used in criminal trials, and police departments and his office can’t afford to process and store extra and unneeded data. “Volumes upon volumes of stuff is pouring into these agencies that, before body cameras, didn’t come in, before cameras on street corners, didn’t come in.”

According to Richardson, police departments are eventually planning to upload all digital evidence to an external website to make it more accessible for the defense. The goal is to have all local police departments using the website by the end of the year. “We want to err on the side of sending more not less. We don’t want to hold anything back that could be considered evidence.”