DERU Executive Overview
Digital-Evidence Readiness for Public Defender Offices
DERU—the Digital Evidence Review Unit—is the Digital Innocence Initiative’s public defender office partnership pathway. It gives a public defender office an immediate, practical starting point for recognizing and addressing digital-evidence issues using existing staff and resources.
A public defender office or agency joins DII by enrolling as a DERU partner. DERU partners also become members of the Digital Innocence Coalition and receive free readiness resources developed for public defense.
Enroll Your Office as a DERU Partner →
Request a DERU Leadership Briefing →
Why DERU
Potentially important digital evidence may be lost, incompletely collected or produced, misunderstood, or accepted without meaningful independent review.
DERU provides a practical framework for public defender offices to:
- Assess early for time-sensitive, missing, or overlooked evidence.
- Establish a baseline using technical resources, recognized standards, and best practices to understand what exists, what law enforcement collected, what may be missing, and what may be needed.
- Preserve and obtain evidence appropriately while documenting the work and integrating qualified forensic assistance when specialized work is required.
Providing these resources to public defenders produced measurable results across digital-evidence requests, evidence identification and preservation, and more favorable case outcomes.
Meaningful progress can begin with practical steps already within the defense’s reach—without requiring every office to create a laboratory or employ a full-time forensic examiner.
What the Office Receives
Verified DERU partner offices receive a coordinated readiness resource set:
- DERU Executive Overview
- DERU Start Roadmap
- Digital Evidence Case Assessment Checklist
- Time-Sensitive Digital Evidence Guide
- Post-Conviction Digital-Evidence Review Checklist
- Post-Conviction Digital-Evidence Technical Guide
- Digital Evidence Toolbox Access
- Digital Innocence Coalition Listserv Access for authorized participants
The Digital Evidence Toolbox provides practical case-assessment, provider, retention, preservation, discovery, standards, best-practices, and digital-forensic resources. DERU materials help offices introduce and use those resources through their existing structure.
Explore the Digital Evidence Toolbox →
Learn About the Digital Innocence Coalition Listserv →
A Practical Starting Model
An office can begin with one person, one case, and its existing resources:
- Enroll and identify a primary contact.
- Select an appropriate active or post-conviction case.
- Use the Case Assessment Checklist and Time-Sensitive Digital Evidence Guide.
- Apply relevant Toolbox resources to assess, establish the baseline, and collect what should be preserved or obtained.
- Integrate qualified forensic assistance when necessary.
- Review the first use and expand the process as appropriate.
The DERU Start Roadmap provides the complete implementation sequence.
DERU can be coordinated through an existing role, shared across several functions, or developed into a more formal capability as the office’s needs and resources evolve.
No prior advanced technical experience is required to begin.
What DERU Does Not Require
DERU does not require an office to:
- Create a separate department or forensic laboratory
- Purchase forensic tools or employ a full-time examiner
- Pursue every conceivable digital source in every case
- Retain any particular expert, laboratory, consultant, or provider
Each office determines how the resources fit its staffing, policies, cases, confidentiality requirements, and professional obligations.
Indicators of Progress
Offices can evaluate progress through:
- Assessments completed and time-sensitive sources identified
- Preservation and digital-evidence requests made
- Relevant evidence identified or preserved
- Missing or incomplete discovery identified
- Matters referred for qualified assistance
- Personnel participation and training results
- Documented case outcomes involving material digital-evidence issues
These indicators can help an office evaluate how digital-evidence readiness is developing within its existing practices.
National Objective
DII is expanding the National Digital Evidence Readiness Framework through broader Toolbox access, additional DERU partnerships, structured post-conviction review, and guidance for integrating qualified forensic assistance when needed.
Every public defender office should have a reliable starting point, a repeatable process, and access to the resources needed to respond when digital evidence may affect a case.
By joining as a DERU partner, an office strengthens its own readiness while contributing to a broader national public-defense response.
Next Step
This DERU Executive Overview provides a concise leadership summary of the purpose, starting model, resources, and national objective.
The actual enrollment, verification, and resource-access process is handled through the Digital Evidence Toolbox.
An authorized office representative can begin the enrollment process or request a leadership briefing if needed.
Enroll Your Office as a DERU Partner →