Supreme Court Solution

ISLANDIA, N.Y. -- The Indiana Supreme Court will implement an advanced case management system (CMS) solution, which will dramatically streamline judicial and law enforcement processes and link the trial court system to other agencies that use case information, such as police and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Previously, digital communications between the courts and other state agencies -- as well as among the courts themselves -- was minimal. Because Indiana's courts are locally funded, different courts had different case management systems, hampering communications. Some smaller courts had no computer systems at all. Paper-based workflows were slow and error-prone -- especially since information often had to be entered by hand into as many as seven separate systems. As a result, critical information could be missing from case files, and judges often had no access to defendants' criminal records in other counties.
With the new CMS, court officials will only need to enter case-related information into a central database once to make it available within 24 hours to judges, prosecutors, lawyers and clerks in more than 300 courts across the state's 92 counties. The CMS will track all developments in all cases pending in Indiana courts and forward relevant information automatically to other agencies for appropriate action.

The CMS provides portal-style Web access to system functions, simplifying implementation and ensuring the ease of use necessary for widespread adoption by nontechnical users with minimal training. The CMS will give judges instant access to defendants' past criminal records and allow lawyers to monitor their cases, track exhibits and witnesses, and file documents electronically. Additionally, the state-of-the-art CMS will enable citizens and their lawyers to check the status of their civil and criminal cases via the Internet.

The system will also integrate tightly with a wide range of existing court and agency systems, such as the state's child support system, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, prison system, police and probation officers, as well as aid in the performance of many other interagency tasks currently requiring paperwork and faxes to complete. The new system will also collect statewide court statistics, relieving court clerks of the burden of compiling and analyzing data.
The new system will ensure more rapid and effective prosecution of criminal and civil cases, eliminating the errors and delays that often plague bureaucratic processes. It will also reduce the cost of such prosecutions.

Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) was selected to design the CMS after an extensive five-month review of proposals from 34 other integration service providers.
Initially, CA Services will be configuring the solution and building custom interfaces to other state agencies before turning to statewide deployment. The first county to go online will be Marion County, which includes the city of Indianapolis and handles the Indiana judicial system's largest caseload. Other counties will immediately follow with the entire process expected to last through 2005.
The state eventually plans to extend the CMS to its appellate courts, including the Indiana Supreme Court, to further streamline the state's justice system. - Emily Montandon, staff writer