E-Filing Should Support Government to Court Communications
But criminal and other cases involving human services and
other government departments and programs are a different animal for E-filing. In criminal cases the attorneys are
continually looking for procedural mistakes and other errors in order dismiss
cases and free or reduce the penalties for their clients. In other words, the attorneys truly embrace
their adversarial role with court procedures as well as the opposing side. As a result, and along with funding challenges,
there are only a handful of criminal case E-filing systems in the USA today.
The vast majority of E-filing systems focus upon
civil case matters. While there are many
reasons I believe that besides vendor funding, this focus greatly reduces project
political risk to the courts. Judges have
more discretion in managing civil cases and the parties can agree to work
together to support new systems and procedures for everyone’s benefit. In fact, this is how court E-filing started in 1990 in the
Delaware Chancery Court.
But criminal and other cases involving human services and
other government departments and programs are a different animal for E-filing. In criminal cases the attorneys are
continually looking for procedural mistakes and other errors in order dismiss
cases and free or reduce the penalties for their clients. In other words, the attorneys truly embrace
their adversarial role with court procedures as well as the opposing side. As a result, and along with funding challenges,
there are only a handful of criminal case E-filing systems in the USA today.