August / September 2016

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August/September 2016

MANAGING VOIR DIRE PRACTICES Latest CMS Capabilities

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Courts Today 69 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755

Upgrading AV Technology

Vol. 14 No. 4

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with alternative & diversion programs

Publisher & Executive Editor Thomas S. Kapinos Assistant Publisher Jennifer Kapinos

A U G U S T / S E P T E M B E R 2 016

Editor Donna Rogers

VOLU M E 14 N U M B E R 4

Contributing Editors Michael Grohs, Bill Schiffner G.F. Guercio, Kelly Mason

F EATU R E S

Art Director Jamie Stroud

12 National Association of Pretrial Service Agencies (NAPSA) Convenes in Salt Lake, Utah

18 CMS Capabilities: More

Functionality, Integration & Accessibility

24 Electronic Navigation And Payment Tools

26 Managing Voir Dire Practices 30 Upgrading AV Technology: A Court’s Story

DE PARTM E NTS

8 Courts in the Media 34 Ad Index

Marketing Representatives Bonnie Dodson (828) 479-7472 Art Sylvie (480) 816-3448 Peggy Virgadamo (718) 456-7329

with alternative & diversion programs

is published bi-monthly by: Criminal Justice Media, Inc PO Box 213 Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 310.374.2700 Send address changes to: COURTS TODAY 69 Lyme Road Hanover, NH 03755 or fax (603) 643-6551 To receive a FREE subscription to COURTS TODAY submit, on court letterhead, your request with qualifying title; date, sign and mail to COURTS TODAY 69 Lyme Road Hanover, NH 03755 or you may fax your subscription request to (603) 643-6551 Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions for non-qualified personnel, United States only, is $60.00.

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Printed in the United States of America, Copyright © 2016 Criminal Justice Media, Inc.

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CO U RT S I N T H E M E D I A OHIO COURTS RECEIVE SUPREME COURT TECH GRANTS

According to the June 10 Akron Legal News, Ohio area courts look to make significant technology upgrades due to the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent $2.5 million in grant funding. Courts in Summit, Mahoning, Portage and Trumbull Counties received nearly $600,000 of the grant monies.

“We received an overwhelming response to this program with nearly 570 proposals submitted. The projects selected will enable local courts to administer justice fairly and securely, and to improve access to justice for more Ohioans,” said Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor said.

According to the Supreme Court’s website, the fund was established to, among other goals, connect courts to the Ohio Courts Network (OCN), deliver technology to the courts, operate a commission and “aid in the orderly adoption and comprehensive use of technology in Ohio courts.” The grant money is not intended to pay for normal hardware or software upgrades, like new desktop, laptops or software maintenance fees.

A 13-member committee reviewed the grant requests which totaled $16.5 million.

In all, the 2016 grants covered 110 projects in 69 courts located in 44 counties. The average grant was about $22,675, according to Supreme Court documents.

The same amount of money was awarded to 109 different projects last year which was the first year offering this type of grant funding.

The monies will be distributed to the individual courts as soon as each court files the appropriate paperwork with the state. Each court had until Sept. 1 to spend the money.

Portage County Domestic Relations Court received $424,222 for seven total projects—far and away the largest grant amount disbursed to one court in the state.

They were “overwhelmed,” said Judge Paula C. Giulitto of the domestic relations court, because they were awarded seven of the 10 grants for which they applied.

The single largest grant to the court–the largest in the state–totaled $330,000 for security equipment for the Portage County Courthouse.

Other technology that will be granted encompasses more than $30,000 for routers at the Summit County Common Pleas Court. (In 2015, Summit County Common Pleas received $40,000 for upgrades to its court management system, including automating electronic signatures for the judges, said the court’s IT director Jay Chapman.)

Barberton Municipal Court received $41,020 to go to their security system, while Mahoning County Common Pleas Court was awarded two grants totaling

over $104,000 to upgrade network infrastructure and for a phone system and Newton Falls Municipal Court received $12,300 for juror kiosks.

COURT: KENTUCKY JUDICIAL CANDIDATES CAN DECLARE THEIR POLITICAL PARTY On August 24 a federal appeals court struck down a rule preventing judicial candidates in Kentucky from declaring their political affiliations, according to an AP report in the Quad City Times. But a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld rules blocking judicial candidates from making financial contributions to other candidates or hosting political fundraisers.

The ruling could set new and wider boundaries for conduct in nonpartisan campaigns for Kentucky judgeships.

Christopher Wiest, an attorney representing three judicial candidates who challenged the rules, says the appeals court ruling backs the free-speech rights of prospective judges to promote their campaigns by identifying whether they're Republicans or Democrats.

Wiest's clients sued the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission in 2014 to challenge canons of judicial ethics that limited what judicial candidates could say during campaigns.

TRIAL BY JURY, A HALLOWED AMERICAN RIGHT, IS VANISHING

The criminal trial ended more than two and a half years ago, but Judge Jesse M. Furman can still vividly recall the case, begins an August 7 article in The New York Times. It stands out, not because of the defendant or the subject matter, but because of its rarity: In his four-plus years on the bench in Federal District Court in Manhattan, it was his only criminal jury trial.

He is far from alone.

Judge J. Paul Oetken, in half a decade on that bench, has had four criminal trials, including one that was repeated after a jury deadlocked. For Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who has handled some of the nation’s most important terrorism cases, it has been 18 months since his last criminal jury trial.

“It’s a loss,” Judge Kaplan said, “because when one thinks of the American system of justice, one thinks of justice being administered by juries of our peers. And to the extent that there’s a decline in criminal jury trials, that is happening less frequently.”

The national decline in trials, both criminal and civil, has been noted in law journal articles, bar association studies and judicial opinions. But recently, in the two federal courthouses in Manhattan and a third in White Plains (known collectively as the Southern District of New York), the vanishing of criminal jury trials has never

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C O U RT S I N T H E M E D IA seemed so pronounced.

The Southern District held only 50 criminal jury trials last year, the lowest since 2004, according to data provided by the court. The pace remains slow this year.

In 2005, records show, there were more than double the number of trials: 106.

“It’s hugely disappointing,” said Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a 20-year veteran of the Manhattan federal bench. “A trial is the one place where the system really gets tested. Everything else is done behind closed doors.”

Legal experts attribute the decline primarily to the advent of the congressional sentencing guidelines and the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences, which transferred power to prosecutors, and discouraged defendants from going to trial, where, if convicted, they might face

harsher sentences.

“This is what jury trials were supposed to be a check against—the potential abuse of the use of prosecu-

The Southern District [in New York] held only 50 criminal jury trials last year, the lowest since 2004. torial power,” said Frederick P. Hafetz, a defense lawyer and a former chief of the criminal division of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, who is researching the issue of declining trials, according to the Times article.

In 1997, according to federal courts data nationwide, 3,200 of 63,000 federal defendants were con-

victed in jury trials; in 2015, there were only 1,650 jury convictions, out of 81,000 defendants.

Former Judge John Gleeson, who in March stepped down from the federal bench in Brooklyn to enter private practice, noted in a 2013 court opinion that 81 percent of federal convictions in 1980 were the product of guilty pleas; in one recent year, the figure was 97 percent.

Judge Gleeson wrote that because most pleas are negotiated before a prosecutor prepares a case for trial, the “thin presentation” of evidence needed for indictment “is hardly ever subjected to closer scrutiny by prosecutors, defense counsel, judges or juries.

“The entire system loses an edge,” he added, “and I have no doubt that the quality of justice in our courthouses has suffered as a result.”

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CO U RT S I N T H E M E D I A TYLER TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES PUBLIC SECTOR EXCELLENCE AWARDS Tyler Technologies, Inc. announced recipients of its 2016 Tyler Public Sector Excellence Awards for the Odyssey® courts and justice solution and its first recipient for Tyler’s SoftCode™ civil processing solution. The national Odyssey winners were named at Tyler’s Connect national user conference in Phoenix, and the Texas winners were named at the Odyssey user conference in Austin.

National winners included Fulton County, Georgia; the Minnesota Judicial Branch; and the Indiana Supreme Court. Texas winners included El Paso County, Cameron County District Clerk, Travis County Justice of the Peace, Precinct Two, and Dallas County .

• Fulton County Superior Court After implementing Odyssey, Fulton County realized the next step to transform their court was to put into action mandatory electronic filing via Odyssey eFileGA™.

Implementing efiling that integrates with the Odyssey case management reduced paper flowing into the system and freed up storage space.

• Minnesota Judicial Branch Statewide implementation of the Odyssey Portal™ in the Minnesota Judicial Branch was completed in spring 2016. As of January 2016, about 5,000 users from more than 130 statewide justice partner agencies were using the Portal. This rollout enabled the Minnesota Judicial Branch to move toward a completely electronic environment, consistent with the eCourtMN goal. The solution provided electronic access to all

justice partner agencies across the state, including law enforcement and public defenders.

• Indiana Supreme Court, Div. of State Court Administration The Indiana Supreme Court selected Odyssey to equip all of the state’s 400 courts with a single, statewide case and financial management system to integrate all agencies so they can easily share information and manage caseloads faster and more cost-effectively. Odyssey has been deployed to 238 courts, operates in 55 of Indiana’s 92 counties, and represents 62 percent of all new cases filed. As more counties adopt Odyssey in 2016, the system will handle more than 80 percent of all cases.

In 2015, the Court implemented the Odyssey e-filing solution, and combined with Odyssey Case Manager™, it provided paperless operations.

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B Y B I L L S C H I F F N E R , C O N T R I B U T I N G E D I T OR

National Association of Pretrial Service Agencies Convenes in Salt Lake City The conference looks at the latest in pretrial issues, products and services—from online diversion education to pretrial software to tracking devices.

The 44th Annual National Association of Pretrial Service Agencies (NAPSA) Conference and Training Institute held at the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Salt Lake City, Utah, from September 11-14 brought together over 650 pretrial services and diversion program staff, judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, jail staff, law enforcement, policy makers and researchers to one of the most highly-anticipated conferences on the issues that matter most to America’s pretrial justice system.

“This is an exciting time for pretrial practitioners. There is a national focus on front-end issues presenting a tremendous need for education in the field. NAPSA is the only conference that is solely dedicated to pretrial, diversion and front-end justice system issues, notes Penny Stinson, NAPSA president. “NAPSA 2016 gave practitioners the opportunity to learn about new research, review the basic and fundamental elements of pretrial services and network with other professionals.

“The conference featured information, education, and training to continue to elevate the national discussion of the need for pretrial services and the incredible work being done by pretrial professionals at the local, state, and federal levels,” she added.

Stinson points out that one of the biggest challenges facing their membership is the explosive growth of pretrial initiatives across the country that has created a demand for continued education and research in best practices for the field. “Trying to sort that out is a challenge and requires the ability from line staff to executive management to articulate and educate all stakeholders in the legal foundation of pretrial practices,” she explains.

Sixty instructional workshops

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provided participants the opportunity to review the foundations of pretrial, learn the latest research findings, hear about the implementation of evidence-based practices and understand current opportunities available to those working in the field.

The conference also featured a plethora of intensive training programs as well as other special sessions. A highlight of the conference was a table-top product exhibition that offered the latest in pretrial products and services. Here are some of the products and services that were showcased.

Decision-support Tool The Northpointe Suite is a decision-support tool with a full complement of industry-leading scales designed to predict three types of risk (general recidivism, violent recidivism, and failure to appear)

and measure 24 dimensions of criminogenic need. The COMPAS scales improve decision-making accuracy by providing pretrial release/risk information that is relevant, reliable, and scientifically validated. COMPAS users can select any combination of scales to build any number of assessment questionnaires that will support specific goals of their assessment strategy. Information seamlessly flows to COMPAS case planning and case manager, providing details about community monitoring, testing, treatment, scheduled events, and conditions status. www.northpointeinc.com, 1.888.221.4615.

Pretrial CMS Automon’s Ce Pretrial is the first Pretrial case management system designed to reflect the specific metrics and best practices defined by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Measuring What Matters Pretrial case study. Ce Pretrial provides

intuitive tools and workflows to manage all aspects of Pretrial services, from intake, interview, assessment, “keep/release” recommendation, court calendars and Supervision—including web reporting and telephone reporting, kiosk, and drug and alcohol testing.

Users leverage a comprehensive reporting dashboard that updates in real-time, providing valuable data insights and drawing attention to any high priority issues that require follow-up, such as FTRs, FTAs and failed drug or alcohol tests. Ce Pretrial is fully functional as a standalone application or integrated with a third-party system. www.automon.com/ce-pretrial, 1.800.539.0048

Smart Tag Tampa Bay, FL-based Buddi US introduced its latest Smart Tag, onepiece tracking device. The Smart Tag features 3G GSM communication providing vastly improved coverage compared to 2G and its reported groundbreaking Convergent Location Technology that provides full-time indoor tracking. The Smart Tag continuously records indoor points to supplement GPS and provides minute-byminute location information indoors and in urban canyons, greatly reducing gaps in location information when GPS is unavailable. www.buddi.us, 1.844.283.3487

Online Education Programs Adventfs.com’s Diversion Manager is a series of online education programs that allows prosecutors to divert qualified offenders into a positive prevention experience merging the gap between ticket for-

giveness and court. It provides a valuable alternative to prosecution and clears a docket of many nuisance offenses. Plus, it can provide an additional fee revenue stream for your office, the state or charitable giving—funds to help meet any budgetary needs. Violators log on to the web, view the content tutorial specific to their offense and take a test to gauge what they’ve learned.

When they receive a passing score, it transmits that score to the prosecutor’s office. www.adventfs.com, 1.866.494.8556

National Pretrial Organization The Pretrial Justice Institute is a national organization working to advance safe, fair, and effective pretrial justice that honors and protects all people. The Pretrial Justice Institute’s (PJI) core purpose is to advance safe, fair, and effective juvenile and adult pretrial justice practices and policies that honor and protect all people. They work to achieve our core purpose by moving policymakers and justice system stakeholders to adopt and implement practices. PJI is working on the 3DaysCount initiative, which is a national campaign to advance commonsense solutions to widespread pretrial justice challenges in 20 states by 2021. http://www.pretrial.org, 240.477.7152

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Pretrial conference site: Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort

Alcohol Intervention Programs 3rd Millennium Classrooms’ flagship course Under the Influence was the first online alcohol intervention program in the U.S. In 14 years, the company has grown to include court clients in all 50 states. The company has been in the forefront of drug and alcohol education since 1999 with the creation of the first online alcohol education course in the country.

Since then a total of 11 courses have been developed and are being used by over 1,200 courts, colleges and high schools nationwide. In 2010, there were over 130,000 enrollments

in a 3rd Millennium alcohol/drug prevention or intervention course. Its course of action combines evidencebased interventions and the latest technology to effectively reach teens and young adults. https://web.3rdmilclassrooms.com, 1.888.810.7990

Electronic Payments Options GovPayNet is the category leader in processing credit, debit and prepaid debit card payments, on behalf of consumers to government agencies. More than 1,400 agencies in over 40 states utilize GovPayNet to process payments. www.govpaynet.com, 1.888.561.7888

Online Driving Education Program Adventfs.com’s Prosecutor Traffic Safety Program is an online driving education program that allows prosecutors to divert qualified offenders into a positive prevention experience. Violators log on to the web, view the traffic and driving skills tutorial and take a test to gauge what they’ve learned. When they receive a passing score, it transmits that score to the prosecutor’s office.

For those who don’t have online access, a DVD instructional video and accompanying mail-back test is available as an alternative. www.adventfs.com, 1.866.494.8556

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BY G.F. GUERCIO, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

CMS Capabilities Turn Up the VOLUME

The message is loud and clear: capabiliTies of case managemenT sysTems conTinue To increase wiTh more funcTionaliTy, inTegraTion and accessibiliTy.

case managemenT capabilities

are all about greater functionality across multiple users, platforms and devices. It’s all about the integration and accessibility of information through all phases of justice from arrest to courtroom to probation.

Case management systems were originally developed for easy data entry and document management, explains Vasco L. Bridges III (Nosa), CEO, JANO Technologies. Now, as

integrations extend information exchange and reduce data entry like e-filing and e-citations, CMS systems now must focus on integration management with multiple vendors and partners as well as information display to end users and constituents.

He relays that JANO offers case management solutions for the entire court: clerk, judiciary, prosecutor, defender, and probation. “We also

support ad hoc services like electronic filing, payments, citations inquiry and search—both free and subscription-based. JANO provides case management solutions that are layered on top of a robust accounting backbone” to support clerks with often complex accounting needs. “We are right now most excited about our CIRRUS platform, the first cloud-based CMS solution offered in Illinois, which is ideal for

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smaller counties with tight budgets and lean IT staffs.”

Integration and information sharing is an essential component of a modern criminal justice system, concurs Ernie L. Sego, president/CEO of Justice Systems, Inc. “To create a progressive Integrated Justice Information System (IJIS), courts must exchange data with at least law enforcement agencies, prosecutor and public defender offices, motor vehicle departments, correctional facilities, offender registries, data repositories, and affiliated state agencies,” he says. The FullCourt Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) manages these information exchanges and “takes the complexity out of IJIS integration and provides high-performance, multi-protocol interactions between heterogeneous systems

and services. The ESB provides a set of capabilities to enable integration using the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and Service-oriented architecture (SOA).”

In addition to the ESB, “key advantages our solution provides the court are our Public Access module, Integrated Imaging module, our fully integrated e-payment system (CitePayUSA), and FullCourt EFiling,” he furthers. “These allow the court to give the public ready access to key court information in a highly-secure manner.”

Because everyone is accustomed to instantaneous access to informa-

tion on the Internet, increasingly the expectation is full text of court records available online.

This creates problems particularly in states with strong data privacy laws, according to Troy Burke, director of Government Solutions, Extract Systems.

“Our indexing and redaction solutions add extra layers of automation to assist CMS users who review documents to decide how documents should be indexed or what data needs to be redacted.”

The Find and Redact feature allows courts to apply user-specified redactions throughout entire documents or case files—most frequently used for partial expungements—he

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An example of a personalized screen in JWorks by CourtView Justice Solutions.

An example of a personalized dashboard in CourtView Justice Solutions’ JWorks.

says, and an operator assisted machine-learning feature called Feedback Collection tracks user activity that is then used to improve redaction accuracy. “ID Shield and FLEX index learn from that feedback and fine tune the indexing and redaction engine and improve the accuracy based on past corrections.”

There are mounting pressures in the justice world to provide additional services and/or support to increase the public’s access to justice, observes Mahesh Rengaswamy, Sr, director, Global Justice Programs, Thomson Reuters. From online dispute resolution and online filing to guides that assist pro se litigants through the judicial process, courts are being challenged to play a more active role in accessibility, he says. “Our robust Public Access module alleviates congestion at the courthouse, while securely allowing various levels of access to information for public users and registered/authenticated users.”

He adds another challenge: With the successes of specialty courts— drug courts, veteran’s courts, and mental health courts—oftentimes a standard case management system isn’t configured to manage the nuances of specialty cases.

“Thomson Reuters has long been a partner with the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania where together we’ve created a Civil Mental Health Electronic Filing and Case Management System that ultimately

feeds into their CTrack CMS.” From specialty to a broader aspect, Kristina Rumsey, assistant vice president, director of C o r p o r a t e Communications, Pioneer Technology Group, says Benchmark is for all courts and case types and includes an integrated web-based judicial bench system—Municipal, Circuit, State, Traffic, Criminal, Civil, Probate, Probation, Judicial, among others.

“Benchmark includes imaging, efiling, automated workflows, redaction, a real-time judicial viewer, bulk action engine for processing several cases at once, a flexible reporting suite, in court processing with e-signatures and document routing, and the ability to be configured to work with any business rules.”

She adds, “Benchmark web has seen significant new functionality some of which includes: ability to create orders, notices and other documents in word and have them automatically docket back to the CMS, Free text OCR search and order creation, case activity notice via email for attorneys or judges, eservice tracking, Outlook and Gmail calendar export and much more.”

For functionality, JusticeTech CMS has several key advantages, states Scott Bade, president, ImageSoft. Person centric: It is easy

to see all interactions when viewing a person rather than requiring separate searches to find all commonality with a particular individual.

Powerful, yet configurable: The ImageSoft solution is underpinned with a powerful workflow engine that is highly configurable by the customer using a point-and-click interface. “Pre-configured with common court processes, it can be configured to automate virtually any court process,” he says.

Dan Mayernik, director of Product Development, ImageSoft, furthers that it has industry-leading document management—The same case documents can be displayed in different folder structures for different people in the court, searched by case metadata and also searched by content within the documents. Mobile access: Clerks, judges, prosecutors, court administrators, law enforcement can interact with documents and workflows from a laptop, tablet or mobile phone. Electronic end to end: “Our Criminal Case processing solution is all inclusive from law enforcement to prosecutors, enabling e-filing evidence and warrant

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requests electronically from the patrol car, he says.

Likewise, notes Michael Kleiman, director of Marketing, Tyler Technologies Courts & Justice Division, “The Odyssey product suite offers the option of truly integrated justice by enabling users to easily share critical data from dispatch to disposition.” With the addition of New World Public Safety, Tyler is able to unify and automate sharing of criminal justice information across agencies—dispatch operators, police on patrol, fire departments and emergency services, court clerks, trial judges, prosecutors, corrections staff and probation officers— better than ever before, he says.

With Tyler's case management software courts can manage complete case histories, process documents and handle cash/bond transactions, all the while benefitting from comprehensive security and auditing functions. “As the heart of the Odyssey software suite, Case Manager is highly configurable and adaptable to evolving with local and legislative requirements.”

Also evolving, eCourt from Journal Technologies is a browser-based system that was architected from the ground up as a highly configurable “business processing engine” to be the centerpiece for document management

Courtroom Processing is designed for high-volume courts in FullCourt Enterprise from Justice Systems.

and eFiling solutions, says Bart Liechty, sales and marketing manager. “Users only need a web browser to access our eSuite of software from desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablet devices. The system’s graphical user

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interface, including all screens and dashboards, is natively touch-screen enabled. No software customization is required with our software, except for interfaces to outside agencies.”

Mayernik adds, “Since governments normally have limited capital budgets, we lease our systems so that our clients are not confronted with large initial capital investments.”

And, “Our configurable, off-the-shelf solutions do not require our clients to change processes to fit the product.

Instead, we will work with agencies and courts to configure the system to their needs.”

“Leveraging advancements in recent technologies, CJS [CourtView Justice Solutions] has introduced a new CMS, called JWorks, that lets customers design their own screen layouts, add new fields, rename field

labels, personalize user dashboards and tool tips, and create their own workflow rules and triggers,” says Sue Humphreys, director of Industry Solutions, CJS. “Its fluid display automatically adjusts to whatever device is being used whether iOS, Android, laptop, or workstation— Windows, Linux, and OS X operating systems.

“Because our JWorks CMS is built with the latest Java technologies, it has several features that really set it apart. First, its modern framework ensures that it’s super-responsive— fast—and super-customizable–right down to the individual user. We’re also able to take advantage of opensource—free—components and we pass those savings right along to our customers. Undoubtedly the most unique features are its built-in screen

Justice Systems’ e-payment system, CitePayUSA, is fully-integrated with FullCourt Enterprise and FullCourt EFiling.

designer and its Dynamic Caseflow Management engine,” she says.

Yet, with all the advancements in CMS, Humphrey’s notes there is still room for improvement. “People can do their banking and manage their bills without ever writing a check or leaving their home…. Heck, I can walk over to my washing machine right now and press one button to alert Amazon that I need more detergent. Justice may be more complex and I’m not an advocate for e-everything when it comes to the courts but there’s certainly room for a lot of technological growth.” CT For More Information: Extract Systems, 608.821.6520, extractsystems.com Thomson Reuters, 651.687.7799, thomsonreuters.com Journal Technologies, 877.587.8927, journaltech.com Pioneer Technology Group, 800.280.5281, www.pioneertechnologygroup.com, twitter.com/PioneerTech Tyler Technologies, 800.431.5776, www.tylertech.com Justice Systems, Inc., 505.883.3987, www.justicesystems.com.

JANO Technologies, 800.250.9884, www.janojustice.com ImageSoft, Inc., 248.948.8100, www.imagesoftinc.com CourtView Justice Solutions, 800.406.4333, www.courtview.com Xerox Corporation, www.xerox.com

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BY DONNA ROGERS, EDITOR

TECHNOLOGIES THAT SPEED UP AND EASE NOT ONLY NAVIGATION BUT TIMELY PAYMENTS AS WELL.

NO SWEAT APPEARANCES AND PAYMENTS C

ircling the justice complex’s parking lot. Scanning signs for the proper entrance. Following visitors exiting, looking for an open parking space. Once inside, asking directions and realizing you’re at the wrong entrance. Walk a distance to the next building. Ten minutes gone. Go through the security queue. Searching for the bank of elevators in the correct wing.

Another 15 minutes eaten up, and the sweat is trickling down the back of your neck. A throng of visitors crowd around the sign listing the courtrooms, and you wait five minutes to see the sign. Fourth floor.

You turn right but the numbers are

going down. You backtrack and hurry down the same corridor in the opposite direction. In the end, despite your good intentions, you’re late for your 10 o’clock court appearance.

Each and every day this occurs in courthouses across America, with some visitors who also happen to be handicapped, elderly or have trouble reading English.

Electronic signage that is easy to understand, includes maps and diagrams, is large enough for many to view and is multi-lingual will get visitors to their courtroom on time, perhaps in a better frame of mind— and without breaking a sweat.

Infax, the Georgia-based company that has been keeping patrons in public spaces better informed for more than 45 years, provides turnkey software and hardware solutions that allow courts to automatically display any case or courthouse information on monitors throughout the facility.

Using various solutions from the Infax Judicial Suite, courts can communicate real-time case, juror, or facility information to alleviate stress on court patrons and staff members.

The company details that it integrates with any court’s case or jury management systems to display the most upto-date info that’s available at the moment.

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When courts want to improve efficiency, one of their top priorities is placing wayfinding and case information strategically throughout the facility, notes Kristen Zeck, marketing associate with Infax. Patrons can look to the electronic docket to find where they need to report, but they may not know how to get there, especially if the courthouse is a multilevel, multiwing building. In conjunction with the digital docket, a digital directory placed in an elevator lobby or an interactive courthouse map located by the docket monitors are great ways to facilitate the wayfinding process, according to Zeck.

Courts can provide further directional help by placing wayfinding monitors on each floor, ensuring that visitors are constantly informed, she adds. When patrons can navigate the facility by themselves, they no longer need to interrupt staff members to ask for directions. This allows courthouse staff to tend to their assigned tasks instead of pausing to guide confused patrons. This results in a more efficient courthouse, she says.

A case in point is the Garrahy Judicial Complex in Providence, RI, which was experiencing high amounts of congestion and general confusion in its lobby areas. Patrons would interrupt courthouse staff to ask for help, which only slowed facility operations further.

To help ease the congestion, they partnered with Infax to installed its DocketCall® and Engage software solutions on seven 32-inch and two 40-inch monitors in the courthouse.

DocketCall, an electronic docket display solution for courts, integrates with the courthouse’s existing CMS to display real-time case information. Engage, Infax’s content-creating program, allows users to create additional wayfinding content and stream the weather, news, local traffic, and short videos.

Due to the success of the initial

installation, the court specified an additional 28 32-inch monitors to be allocated among several courtrooms in the facility and to the Superior Court. It’s benefitted both visitors and employees, says Peter Panciocco, executive director of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, because patrons circulate smoothly from the entrance to their destination. “As the litigants come in the courthouse, they use the informational directories located in the lobby to find out which floor their destination is on,” Panciocco notes.

“Once on the correct floor, the litigants can find the office or their names and case numbers on the digital displays outside each courtroom.

The courts no longer have to put up and manage paper copies of the docket for their respective courtrooms.”

Another challenge that makes people sweat is making payments on time. With the frenetic pace we live our lives, giving people more options in which to pay citation fees and fines, makes for less stress and

contributes to higher revenues.

When CF asked SlabbKiosks, a manufacturer of kiosks with clients from more than 22 different sectors, what they see as the top application for court kiosks they responded: “Payments.” That is because a large proportion of users who must pay into the court system either for their own fines or to settle judgments in civil matters have no means of electronic payment, says Mike Masone, VP of sales. “These users generally pay cash which is expensive on both sides of the transaction.”

Unfortunately, though, there are pitfalls in installing kiosks within the court. For example the expense of integration with legacy systems is expensive. There is also a large political cost, he opines. “How do cash-strapped systems justify capital expenditures that don’t necessarily increase revenue?”

One procurement option is to pay a small transaction fee for each payment transacted. Masone furthers that SlabbKiosks works with solution providers who charge a small transaction fee in exchange for the right to install their kiosk onsite.

The kiosk, installation, and integration with the legacy system are fully covered by the kiosk provider, he says. It allows for “a truly revenueneutral solution.”

Slabb, for instance, partners with CityBase, Inc., a government technology company that works with municipalities to integrate their payment functionality, business processes and communications onto a central, cloud-based platform accessible through multiple channels, including kiosks. The benefit of using kiosks to serve walk-in customers includes managing overflow at peak hours, providing a payment option at off-hours, and decreasing the time that a person requires to complete a transaction—all conveniences that truly allow for no sweat court collections. CT August/September 2016x

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B Y M I C H A E L G R O H S , C O N T R I B U T I N G E D I TOR

No Fear Voir Dire

Getting the jury selection process right with new high-tech tools. rial lawyers spend a great deal of time with the jury selection process, and for good reason. It is a crucial part, if not the cornerstone, of the judicial system. Jury selection once involved tasks such as submitting a jury questionnaire, hiring a jury consultant, having a second chair to monitor jurors’ reactions and other details that the lead counsel may have missed, establishing a focus group, and having a set of 18 Post-it notes that could be redistributed and replaced during the selection process.

Those tasks are still involved, but as nearly every other aspect of the courtroom has advanced technolog-

T

ically, jury management has gone high tech and mobile. With this new technology, jury information can be shared with consultants and assistants directly from the courtroom.

Those sticky notes can be replaced with an app in which they can easily be reconfigured and hold far more information about jurors than a traditional note. Jurors can be color coded by preference to ensure suitability.

It works both ways. Technology can also help jurors with their duty by being able to communicate with the court using mobile devices. “The public,” says Heath Rosenstein, director of Marketing at Judicial Systems, Inc., “is trending towards

mobile first services, utilizing desktop and web services, secondly.

Judicial Systems’ integration between its document management system and its mJuror Texting System will ensure that jurisdictions are ready to accept the eventual mobile first business strategy regarding document imaging and management while providing citizens a quality mobile experience.”

With mobile apps like these, jurors are able to make requests to be excused, deferred, or disqualified.

They can determine their next service date, and be advised of their current status. Using technology such as Xerox’s AgileJury Solution and its ancillary offerings, which

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was designed by jury administrators for jury administrators, jurors can be processed through qualification, summoning, check-in, courtroom assignments, and payment functions with minimal effort.

Mobile Image Capture Essential

Innovation and integration in regards to JMS has been in the making for some time. Courts have long been able to capture digital images of documents by scanning hard copies and extracting specific data elements in the process. Rosenstein says, “Judicial Systems, Inc. has provided document management with advanced data extraction (ADE) to court jurisdictions nationally as a component of its JMS for more than 20 years.” Today's mobile devices allow for an entirely new level of data input by using the built-in cameras to be used as content-entry tools.

Says Rosenstein, “Image capture from any device and from anywhere will grow and become essential. In the future, scanning and inputting documents while sitting by a traditional scanner will not cut it by itself.

Image capture will now need to include the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets’ built-in cameras.” He furthers that there has already been a huge application for this regarding mobile banking and check processing.

In the 2013 article “Getting Your iPad to Help with Voir Dire,” authors and attorneys William Veen and Jennifer de la Campa reviewed many of the applications that aid lawyers in jury selection. The authors stressed that the primary consideration in jury selection remains in picking the jury that will maintain the most fairness to the client. They furthered that there are skeptics who believe voir dire is an art in itself and not something apps

can aid in the selection. During the selection process, the authors noted, “the overarching goal is to connect with the jury and maintain that connection.” What did the authors conclude? Nothing can actually replace a good jury consultant, but these apps and technology can make excellent adjuncts. If the consultant is not wanted, needed, or able to be in the courtroom, they can still receive jury statistics to review and respond to.

Questionnaires remain vital, but now the responses can be loaded into a single place. In the end, JMS technology can streamline and assist in the entire process, but, say the authors, there is no substitute for instinct, and nothing can replace a conversation in which a space is established for a potential juror to express him or herself.

Judicial Systems

With Judicial Systems’s mJuror, potential jurors may take a picture of a questionnaire, medical affidavit or other document with their smart phone and text the picture to mJuror, which in conjunction with the document imaging system, verifies that the form is complete and acceptable. If the form is rejected

because the picture is cropped, low resolution, or incomplete, the potential juror will be notified via text and offered a list of possible remedies. Once the document is accepted, the potential juror will be notified via text and the document will be indexed and placed into the document process flow.

Furthermore, the integration of the document management system and mJuror allows for two-way processing of documents between the court and the potential juror. A digital document image of any court-generated correspondence directed to a juror, such as questionnaires, summons, and employer verifications are generated and indexed within Judicial Systems’ Jury2016Plus Juror Management System.

By utilizing the proven natural language processing (NLP) technology of mJuror, potential jurors can request an exact digital copy of such forms. For example, a juror who loses the original summons mailed to them can simply request a replacement by registering with the court’s mJuror. Judicial Systems’ Document Management System coupled with the functionality of mJuror, the texting component of

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Judicial Systems’ JMS, now adds tremendous value to the Document Management Process. Document images and content may now be entered into the document workflow within the JMS by the use of smart phones/tablets rather than by document scanners alone. This eliminates processing delays resulting from a necessity to physically mail the documents to the court. www.judicialsystems.com, heath@judicialsystems.com, 1.800.205.4068

CourthouseTechnologies

Courthouse SMS Response allows jurors to correspond with Courthouse JMS directly through a text message conversation. This latest functionality is designed to provide even more convenience for your jurors by offering another method to communicate with the court. They are able to make requests to be excused, deferred, or disqualified.

Jurors can find out their next service date and ask for help or transfer to Courthouse IVR. They can leave a message with the Jury Office and get directions to the Courthouse, and they can be advised of their current status. A juror simply sends a text message directly to Courthouse JMS from their mobile phone. SMS Response intuitively understands what the juror is asking and provides an automated response with the information the juror asked for. www.betterjurymanagement.com, 1.877.685.2199

Xerox

The Xerox AgileJury application is a menu-driven, automated, jury management solution that streamlines the jury process from start to finish. AgileJury encompasses all aspects of jury management, from randomly selecting prospective jurors using a certified algorithm to calculating juror payroll. This comprehensive, configurable, end-toend solution ensures efficient and flexible jury management and participation. AgileJury is easy to use,

and to help your court save time and ensure a positive jury experience for citizens, the application can be enhanced with a number of optional, fully integrated components using eJuror, our Web response application, IVR, text messaging, kiosk, tablet applications and scanning technologies. AgileJury can be deployed either as a premise-based or hosted solution. www.xerox.com/en-us/services/local-government/jury-management-system, Michael.Hartman@xerox.com, 585.943.1843; Lane.Turner@xerox.com, 859.550.2633

JuryNotes

JuryNotes is a paper-based jury selection tool. It uses a grid with pre-filled boxes for common demographic information, and a summary area for important details specific to your case. If a juror is replaced, there

are Post-it style sheets that can be used to replace the juror in the grid as well. www.jurynotes.com

TrialPad

TrialPad is an iPad app widely used for courtroom presentation across the country. Once documents are imported into TrialPad they can be displayed for a judge and jury, annotated on the fly with highlight, pen, and laser tools, or zoomed in on, called out, or compared side by side with another document.

TrialPad also has great document organization tools built into the app, including foldering, saving docu-

ment annotations, creating key documents, and has the ability to apply exhibit stickers to all your documents. By putting presentation technology directly into the hands of lawyers, TrialPad is said to save on costly trial presentation software and consultants. www.litsoftware.com

Tyler Tech

With Tyler’s Odyssey Jury™, the court can enhance both services provided and citizens’ perceptions of the court by offering the tech-savvy public an easy and efficient online jury experience while also automating staff activities such as empanelment and deferrals/excusals. Odyssey Jury is an end-to-end enterprise jury system that organizes and simplifies the jury selection process at a state and county level, from the loading of the jury wheel or master list to manag-

ing the pooling process and panels sent to the courtroom for trial, as well as compensating jurors. With Odyssey Jury’s robust tools, clerks can increase juror yield by making it easier to respond and accelerate the check-in process so staff can focus on other tasks. Jurors enjoy a convenient, web-enabled process including responding to jury summons and requesting deferrals online. Simplify the Jury Management Process with Odyssey Jury™. www.tylertech.com, cjsales@tylertech.com, 1.800.431.5776

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B Y M I C H A E L G R O H S , C O N T R I B U T I N G E D I TOR

THE FOURTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT FLORIDA IN JACKSONVILLE OFFERS INSIGHT INTO THEIR DIGITAL PROJECT. Technology can be daunting.

When most of us are considering an upgrade on something such as a phone or a TV, we can ask friends what they know, read Consumer Reports, or believe what the sales person tells us. Usually the worst case scenario is either being in over our heads, ending up with too much or too little of what we are looking

for, or maybe being out a few hundred dollars. For courts, though, the scenario is much more serious, and the consequences can be dire.

Budgets are limited, everything is evolving quickly, there is the matter of retrofitting with existing infrastructure, and with courts justice might be on the line. Here is one court’s story of how they upgraded their technology.

Mike Smith, Court the Technology Officer of the Fourth

Judicial Circuit Florida in Jacksonville notes, “Technology is an industry that requires constant education.” At the same time, he says, “Florida Courts are currently in the midst of drastic change.” They are transitioning to paperless courts, a task that is driving the technology needs of all stakeholders. The move, when complete, will be realized in printing, copying, filing, and storage costs. (When Clark County, Nev., initiated a similar upgrade, the paper

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usage was reduced by 858,000 pages in the first three months alone.)

Florida courts are also using Audio/Visual (AV) technology so evidence can be electronically submitted for presentation as PDF documents or digital pictures. Tablets are also being used more, and they finding both short- and long-term savings.

Chronologically, once a court has made a decision to upgrade, among the first steps is to decide to use vendors or internal personnel. The Fourth Judicial Circuit used both.

Smith furthers that having a strong grasp on current and future technology is clearly important, so it is important to have good relationships with vendors who can assist in the development, strategies, and processes.

There is also the matter that courts might have an idea of what they want but not be certain of the specifics or

what technology is available, and vendors with the proper expertise can help clarify and achieve their goals.

There is also the matter of upgrading and upkeep. “In the courtroom, we have state-of-the-art technology for evidence presentation and ADA equipment. We rely on a good partnership with our vendor to keep that equipment running.”

Home-grown App

The Court also selected a judicial branch viewer (JBV) that had been written in-house by the court technology officer in the Eighth Circuit of Florida. The JBV is how courts access electronic case information and interacts with the case maintenance systems (CMS). The decision to do so was based on the application that was already compliant with JBV standards in Florida. Since the

system was home grown, the Court only needed to pay for programming changes so the application would work with the Clerk’s CMS. There is also the consideration of how the technology will be used.

When the Fourth Circuit began their first phase of electronic document filing, “The decision was made to limit the filings to a single point of entry.” It was a decision made on the recommendation of the Florida Courts Technology Commission, which is a group of judges, technology representatives, Clerks of Court, private attorneys, and other stakeholders. “That decision helped facilitate a smooth transition by limiting multiple projects and focusing assets to a single common purpose.

Although these were not internal personnel, it represents how leveraging various resources can reach a

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common goal. That technology is used by all members of the legal community.”

One successful project, says Smith, was the incorporation of a 70-inch Sharp touchscreen for use with the Court’s existing infrastructure. The project spawned when old-school met new-school and attorneys who liked the evidence cart still preferred standing in front of their presentation “with blow-ups of pictures and drawing on butcher paper with a sharpie.”

(They explained that it was important that the jury be looking at them during the presentation.) Says Smith, “It

was the first time that the Sharp touchscreen technology had been adapted to that type of use.” He furthers that it is important to keep in mind that when people come into a court for jury duty or other involvement with the court, they often expect to interact with these technologies as they do in everyday life.

“Since moving into the new courthouse, we have tried to stay in tune with the evidence presentation technology available.” James R. Holland II, a local attorney, told Smith, “You cannot turn on a television or computer without being fully aware that

we are squarely in the digital age.

Audiences require information conveyed quickly, clearly and vividly.

Today's jurors have the same expectations.”

Selection Process

The selection process for technology requires anticipation and consideration. For example, Smith notes, in some areas there are few vendors who specialize in what the court is attempting to accomplish. The budget is always a consideration as well as how they affect manpower, hard-

LITIGATION-TECH, A COURT TECHNOLOGY tackle this?” This is when the advice of an expert vendor can truly benefit a court. For example, one court in New York was in the process of upgrading around the time HDMI was out but still new. They asked Brooks if HDMI was the way to go. The recommendation, says Brooks, was to prepare for new technology yet retain equal access to legacy technology (VGA), which is still prevalent in many laptops and computers. This can result in a significantly different viewing experience. HD tends to be rectangular with an aspect ratio of 16:9, whereas older TVs and monitors are 4:3. The trick, says Brooks, is for courts to standardize. “We are sort of at a crossroads. Some laptops and trial software can have issues if they are not committed to one format over another.”

Brooks is an AV expert, so if something goes wrong, he will be able to figure out the issue very quickly; however, an attorney in a courtroom A DA-LITE screen used in the courtroom. might not be completely familiar with the technol-

One of the vendors courts call when planning an upgrade is Ted Brooks of Litigation-Tech, LLC, a San Francisco- and Los Angeles-based company that assists courts in upgrading and adopting technology. Brooks has consulted several courts in their upgrading process (The Fourth Judicial Circuit in Florida was not one of them.) who may simply ask, “What is a good way to

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ware, and software, all of which factor into the selection process. “Other factors are timeliness, ability of the vendor or adapting internal process to accomplish the goal(s).“ They also had to consider the fact that they had switched platforms from desktop PCs to tablets and docking stations, a move that occurred two years before so that judges, magistrates, and other personnel could move from location to location without losing connectivity to their applications. The move resulted in a 40% overall reduction in the amount of devices needed. One of the deciding factors when it came

A 70-inch Sharp Aquos Board Interactive Display for presentations allows up to four simultaneous users with interactive touch pens to annotate and create.

CONSULTING COMPANY ogy and struggle with any tech issues that arise. Many computers can get tricked into using the wrong format.

They will read a signal and try to conform to it, but they might not pick the right one. As Smith of the Fourth Circuit in Florida says, “Our audio/video vendor understands that we cannot fix or repair equipment during court proceedings. We have an understanding that they will work around the court schedule. The vendor understands that there is a difference when a courtroom is not functioning properly versus a training room or conference room.”

In trial presentation, Brooks says, courts still tend to lean towards VGA. The width determines how big the screen will be, so “they lose all that real estate on the top and bottom.” Many newer systems have been installed with large LCD monitors. A 60-inch screen, Brooks says, may look massive in a living room, but “in a courtroom it’s a postage stamp.” Litigation-Tech uses pull-down screens, which are 100-inches: nearly twice the size.

(One court in Oakland showed evidence on a small screen, which, says Brooks, was fine for a bench trial, but which he otherwise would have insisted they use a pulldown screen so a jury could see it.) One way to address this, he furthers, is to add more monitors such as one at each end of the jury box or in multiple places; however, there is a caveat to that.

When an attorney wants to draw attention to a specific area, he or she often uses a laser pointer. On a large screen, all can see it. On small screens, not everyone can. Laser pointers are also not very visible on LCD screens because it is light on light, and they are a

primary tool used in courts.

An important consideration, says Brooks, is audio, and courts should consider having a legacy audio cable available as well as HDMI. HDMI includes an audio signal, so AV comes out on the monitor, and the volume level must be correctly adjusted on the monitor, in addition to the laptop. By default, if one were to plug a laptop into HDMI, it will assume it should find HDMI audio as well, so if a legacy audio system is used, a user will need to manually go in and adjust audio settings to enable the headphone jack on their laptop. —Michael Grohs August/September 2016x

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Monitors installed in the jury rails are standard 24-inch desktop monitors with a mount, in order to make refreshing the screen fast and maintenance easier.

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to what to use was the need for a docking station so that users remained able to view documents side-by-side on a 24-inch monitor.

Other factors included what applications were to be used. “Our applications are mainly MS-Windows based.

That issue is changing as more applications become web-based.”

The Installation Process

Phased installation, says Smith, is key due to budget restraints, and ensuring that everything is properly vetted by testing it out before installing is crucial. “Technology cannot slow or impede court,” he says. Installation processes differ depending on the technology being utilized. On that matter, says Smith, “Most of these technologies are basically applications, so training is more on the forefront than installation.”

He furthers that because of having a limited staff, they must remain conscious of their commitment to projects that are particularly time consuming. “Installing new devices for example, is usually a slower process than what is considered ideal.” The priority is keeping everyone working.

“When we hire staff we look for candidates that have a diverse background in IT. That helps to counter

the issue of limited staffing.”

AV Advantages

The new and improved court has realized benefits. Since the court started requiring attorneys to file documents electronically, court cases are now available for staff and outside users to access. They are also searchable using key words. Another improvement is that part of the minimum requirements of the JBV is tabbing and electronic signing/notarization of documents, a feature that saves time for the court and clerks.

The JBV also allows for documents to be transmitted and signed electronically, which saves time in processing the documents as well as making it accessible to the public who can now accesses myriad amounts of information without having to physically go to the courthouse.

Smith ends on a note of advice.

“Without reliable technology, it is safe to say that the 51 courtrooms, 57 hearing rooms, help desk, training, and testing could not be maintained by a staff of 4 IT professionals. The cost of technology should not cost court budgets to swell in the long term. It should immediately or eventually reap a savings. Technology should also provide an access value to the court system.” CT

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