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Monday, January 04, 2010

Ind. Courts - "Indiana courts moving toward unified records system: But private firm pushes competing setup" Part I

That (excluding the "Part I") is the headline to a lengthy story today by Harold J. Adams of the Louisville Courier Journal. It begins:

After nine years and $51million spent, Indiana is progressing toward a statewide computer system that may eventually connect the records of all the state's 401 courts to each other, other state agencies and the public.

That would allow anyone with Internet access to check the history and status of any court case anywhere in the state. It would also give judges and attorneys a quick way to determine whether someone in their local court has had a role in other cases elsewhere.

But the move toward a single system isn't without its wrinkles. Even though the state system is free to counties, another vendor already handles court records for more than half of Indiana's 92 counties and is fighting to keep that business — and add more. * * *

Indiana's Odyssey system is run by the Indiana Supreme Court through the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee, known as JTAC and headed by Sullivan. The state wants to replace what Sullivan says is a mishmash of 23 different electronic case management systems in use across the state with a single, unified system.

“I and the members of our court — and I think most Indiana judges — are of the view that we would be much better off if all Indiana courts were using the same case management system,” Sullivan said. * * *

But while some counties are eager to connect to Odyssey, others have declared they won't participate.

Kosciusko County Clerk Jason McSherry wants no part of the statewide system.

“From a taxpayer standpoint, I don't have a lot of faith in anything the state or government runs,” McSherry said. “I think they ought to let the private sector take care of that.”

Kosciusko County signed a one-year, automatically renewing contract in October with CSI Computer Systems of Fishers, paying $128,000 upfront for software and agreeing to pay $30,000 per year to maintain the system that will begin operating there on March 1.

In nearby LaGrange County, Clerk Beverly Elliott signed with CSI in 2005 when the state was dumping the initial vendor it chose for the statewide system and trying to find another.

“My main reason for not going on Odyssey is because my system's not even 5 years old. So why should I switch?” Elliott said.

She also said that going with Odyssey “would be a step backwards as far as technology.” The CSI system allows her to scan documents into the database, a feature not offered by Odyssey, she said.

CSI now handles court records for 51 Indiana counties and is trying to expand. It was among the unsuccessful bidders for the statewide contract awarded in 2005 to Tyler Technologies of Plano, Texas. Tyler's Odyssey system, which began deploying with a pilot project in 2007, is now in 15 Indiana counties.

Some background information on CMS systems and networking. Note that the case management system (CMS) is the software system used locally to manage a county court system's records. (BTW, it is not clear to this reader why judges in one county would particularly care what CMS system another county was using.)

Linking up the courts so that they, and the public, can access the various courts' current and historical dockets, is a different process. Doxpop, not mentioned in the LCJ article, is a company that functions to network the data from the courts in more than half the counties in Indiana, regardless of whether the courts in question use the CSI CMS, or the CMS of one of the other providers used by various of the counties. Using Doxpop, courts in various counties can "linkup", and the service is also available to private subscribers, including attorneys.

The Odyssey system is networked by JTAC. Feeds from Odyssey courts are not available to private networks. In Monroe County, which became an Odyssey client last year, Doxpop was no longer allowed to link to the county courts' data feeds. The same would be the case, presumably, for any other company that wished to access a county court Odyssey feed.

Harrison County will become an Odyssey county this week -- see this story in the Corydon Democrat. It will become the 11th Odyssey/JTAC county. There are also Odyssey installations in several city courts and small claims courts in other counties.

Part II coming later this week. Check here for a list of earlier ILB JTAC entries.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 4, 2010 01:12 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts