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Monday, December 17, 2007

Ind. Courts - Further 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"

The ILB had several entries early this month under the heading Ind. Courts - "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" Access them here: Dec. 3; Dec. 4; and Dec. 7.

The crux was that, effective Dec. 17th, which is today, Phase 1 in the state court (JTAC) plan to install their own case management system in all local courts, and to link the courts, would go into operation. The first courts, or "pilot" courts, are the Monroe County courts, and the Marion-Washington Twp. Courts.

A private company, Dox-Pop, currently is able to access the CMS systems of 44 counties, and provides a service which links this information and makes it available, some free to the public, and some to subscribers for a fee.

Dox-Pop reportedly has been unable to obtain authorization from JTAC to access the new CMS installed in Monroe County. Today Dox-Pop President, Ray Ontko, issued this release:

As of December 17, 2007, court case information from Monroe County is no longer being updated in the Doxpop System. All other county and municipal courts that have partnered with Doxpop are unaffected by this change. Doxpop will continue to provide up-to-date case information in 132 courts in 43 other counties.

The courts of Monroe County have switched to a new case management system (CMS) provided by the State Court's Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC). In anticipation of this change, Doxpop made its first written request to begin work on an interface with the JTAC system on January 29, 2007. 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. Until Doxpop is granted access to public information in the JTAC system, Doxpop is unable to provide up-to-date information for Monroe County court cases.

Doxpop will continue to provide access to historical Monroe County case information, but new cases filed in Monroe County and new information about existing Monroe County cases will no longer be available via the Doxpop website. Cases filed in Monroe County on or after 12/17/2007 will not be available on Doxpop. Cases filed in Monroe County prior to this date will not be updated in Doxpop to reflect additional minute entries, nor changes to parties, attorneys, hearings, or case dispositions. Similarly, Doxpop is unable to provide e-mail notification for new or changed case information for Monroe County cases as of this date. Basically, the information available in Doxpop about Monroe County court cases will be "frozen" as of December 17, 2007.

An inquiry to Mr. Ontko as to how communications were proceeding with JTAC led to this further information:
We inquired about the status of our request before Thanksgiving and received word that Executive Director of the Division of State Court Administration, Lilia Judson, would bring this matter before the Court but not before December 3. On Friday, December 7, we received a letter from Ms. Judson seeking clarification on a number of matters, and on Monday December 10, we responded. I followed up later in the week to offer to meet with Ms. Judson to answer any further questions that she or the Court may have. Ms. Judson replied that the Court required no further information at this time.
An ILB inquiry to David J. Remondini, Chief Deputy Executive Director, Supreme Court, Division of State Court Administration, referencing the DoxPop release, led to this response:
This change is due to the Supreme Court's rollout of what is expected to be a statewide case management system. Monroe County is the first county to "go live" with the Odyssey case management system. That happened today and really represents a great step forward for court technology. The Marion County Washington Township Small Claims Court went live earlier.

Now, Monroe County case information (and information on the Marion County Washington Township Small Claims Court) is available at no charge at www.courts.in.gov. Click the "Court Case Public Records Search" in the upper right hand corner.

Doxpop's request that this information be transmitted electronically to it for its use is under advisement with Supreme Court.

Here is the new State Court Administration case records inquiry page. Right now the records of two courts are available: Monroe County courts, and Marion - Washington Twp. courts. Here is the Help page.

What does one see? Try Robert M. Knight v. IU, a civil case. One accesses a docket-type document titled "events and orders of the court."

The ILB is unable to figure out how to use the new system to find, for instance, new cases filed after 12/1/07. And no documents are available.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 17, 2007 05:18 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts