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Monday, December 03, 2007

Ind. Courts - Update on: "State court plan to link county courts by 2015 may not permit interfaces by long-existing private company that already links more than 40 counties"

In this ILB entry from Oct. 26th, about the JTAC pilot project in Monroe County, the ILB quoted an Indianapolis Star story as stating "The computerized court system could expand across the state over six years, beginning in 2009, if later pilot counties are successful. Counties won't be forced to make the switch." Then the ILB continued:

In other words, counties will be able to continue to use their own CMSs. This has been, and continues to be, a matter of much concern in some of the counties.

This seems to leave two questions unanswered, however. (1) If a county, such as Marion County, does not switch to the JTAC case management system (CMS) for its own court records, will the county be included in the state web of linked courts? (2) If a county does switch over to the JTAC CMS, can it still be a part of the DoxPop Network?

The answer to the latter question, at least for now, appears to be "No", according to this memo sent out by DoxPop yesterday to all its users.

The entry went on to quote from a DoxPop memo that began "The Courts of Monroe County are planning changes that will affect your ability to access up-to-date Monroe County case information via the Doxpop system after December 17, 2007," and then continued by explaining that DoxPop was attempting to work out an interface between the JTAC and DoxPop systems.

Apparently these efforts have thus far proven unsuccessful, according to a letter sent out today by Ray Ontko, President, which begins:

To all Doxpop users:

The Courts of Monroe County plan to stop sending case information to Doxpop on December 17, 2007. Doxpop plans to continue to provide access to historical case information, but new information about current cases will no longer be available via the Doxpop website.

The Monroe Courts are switching to a new case management system (CMS) provided by the State Court's Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC). On October 25 we formally requested access to Monroe County case information via the new system. We are waiting for the Division of State Court Administration to act on our request.

It looks like JTAC's "pilot program" may not encompass any effort to interface the new CMS system with the long-term and wide-ranging existing networks upon which the legal community relies.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 3, 2007 01:53 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts