For more than two decades, CDS has supported legal teams in tackling their most complex discovery challenges. Among our most meaningful efforts is helping those impacted by social injustice through Relativity’s Justice for Change program, a global initiative that provides technology and expertise to organizations advancing social and legal justice. CDS was among the first partners in the United States, and the first in the UK, to support the Justice for Change program, and we remain committed to its mission today.
23 Years Too Long: The Exoneration of Albert “Ian” Schweitzer
One such case was the effort to help exonerate Albert “Ian” Schweitzer, who spent 23 years in custody for the 1991 rape and murder of Dana Ireland in Hawaii. Counsel from the Innocence Project applied to Relativity’s Justice for Change program, and after the matter was accepted, Relativity brought the case to CDS for support. Working alongside the Innocence Project and the Hawai‘i Innocence Project, our teams helped uncover critical discrepancies in decades-old evidence, contributing to Mr. Schweitzer’s exoneration.
“One of the most gratifying parts of this work is the opportunity to uncover the truth and impact lives,” said Johnathan Hill, global program manager for social impact and community engagement lead at Relativity. “Alongside CDS and the Innocence Project, we were fortunate enough to play a part in revealing the truth and helping free Ian Schweitzer, who lost decades of his life for a crime he didn’t commit. Work like this reminds us that when the legal community and technology come together, we have the power to help build a more just society for all.”
The Challenge: Decades of Fragmented Paper Records
The Innocence Project teams in New York and Hawaii sought to re-examine the evidence from trial, including forensic reports and testimony that now appeared questionable. However, the available records were deeply fragmented. The original case files – 1,884 scanned documents combined into large binder-style PDFs – were inconsistent, difficult to search, and potentially incomplete.
When those materials were later re-provided as individual, separated records, the dataset expanded to 28,495 separate documents, creating a new challenge: determining what was missing, what had changed, and what truly aligned with the trial record.
To make meaningful comparisons, the legal team would need advanced searchability, transparency across versions, and a way to quickly isolate inconsistencies.
The Solution: Advanced Review and Precision Searching in RelativityOne
CDS built a workspace in RelativityOne, applying OCR, analytics, and custom workflows to surface what mattered most. Our team:
- Utilized textual near-duplicate identification to compare inconsistencies across versions of the same files
- Created custom searches to isolate potentially missing documents between the original PDFs and the later split sets
- Enabled efficient review workflows so counsel could rapidly code, compare, and annotate evidence
These steps helped the legal team to uncover contradictions between forensic reports, testimony, and purported jailhouse confessions – surfacing the truth hidden within thousands of disorganized pages.
The Result: Technology That Helped Reveal the Truth
The ability to pinpoint discrepancies quickly, transparently, and with scientific rigor helped the Innocence Project teams build the case that ultimately cleared Mr. Schweitzer’s name. While no technology can restore the 23 years he lost, discovery tools can expose errors that might otherwise stay buried.
CDS remains committed to the mission of the Justice for Change program, because AI and analytics alone don’t deliver justice – real people do. By donating our time and expertise, we strive to help right wrongful convictions and support the attorneys who fight for them.
