Oregon Courts Receive Automation Funding

Judge Michael Marcus in Oregon passed along this information from the court's Chief Information Officer, Bud Borja:

"The Oregon Judicial Department’s efforts to obtaining funding for the Oregon eCourt program earlier this year was successful. Two bills passed in the February 2008, Supplement Session provided 24 million in debt financing for Oregon eCourt.  In addition, Oregon Judicial Department (OJD) has authority to spend $2 million from the Collections Account funds that have been set aside for a financial system eplacement.  Receiving this funding allows OJD to move forward with the replacement of our existing case and financial management systems and to bring modern business tools and practices into the Oregon courts."

Video of testimony before the legislature supporting the eCourts initivative has been posted on YouTube.  Here are links to the video clips:

Judges explain eCourt Urgency: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoPjMQXQ3Lk

TCA explains eCourt Urgency: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clbv5bq7R_Q

How eCourt improves sentencing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-a7Wnzmb7A

Juvenile Information Sharing Webinar On Tap

The Center for Network Development in conjunction with the Juvenile Information Sharing Project has announced that will present a webinar supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) on June 19, 2008 from 1:00-2:00 PM on the framework for analyzing state laws as recommended in the Guidelines for Juvenile Information Sharing.

The announcement listed the following learning objectives for the session:

• What state law permits and requires as to juvenile record sharing
• Statutory models that authorize multiple agency cooperation
• Interagency agreements and working memoranda of understanding
• About an important online resource

The announcement also noted that "there is no fee to participate and registration is limited to 100 persons.  One can register online at http://www.juvenileis.org/webinar.asp.  The deadline for registering is June 13, 2008."

Federal Court Creates Mobile Website

The April, 2008 edition of The Third Branch newsletter from the US Federal Courts contains an article titled "District Court Offers Mobile Version of Its Website". The article begins:
"Like most federal courts, the Northern District of Illinois created its website long before the advent of e-filing and the proliferation of hand-held computers."

Jonathan Zittrain Interview

CTC6 keynote speaker, Oxford/Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain was interviewed on the Charlie Rose show on May13, 2008. To view the video from the show click here.

E-Courts 2008 Online Registration Available

Online registration for this year's E-Courts Conference is now available.  The conference will take place December 8-10 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our theme is Getting the Job Done and our main focus will be on the real-life benefits that electronic documents, communications, and data systems offer your court. In addition to important sessions providing information on how to manage budgetary constraints while trying to maintain optimal productivity and quality of justice, the conference will again feature a manageable vendor exhibit with vendor showcase sessions. This is the one court technology event where you can actually take time to sit down and talk one-on-one with the technology vendors about your ideas and plans for improving your court. 

New Services Task Team Created

The Global Infrastructure/Standards Working Group (GISWG) has initiated a Services Task Team (STT) for the Justice Reference Architecture (JRA)with the help of the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ BJA).  The task team is being managed as a joint project by IJIS, NCSC and SEARCH.  Jim Douglas from SEARCH chairs the STT.  Their first JRA service definitions will be for fusion center suspicious activity reports and fingerprint/biometric services.  State and local justice projects using the JRA are underway in Maine, New York, Utah and Illinois.  Nevada is also considering its use for a court data integration project. For more on GISWG go to their website at: http://www.iir.com/global/GISWG.htm

NIEM Technical Advisory Committee Update

NCSC VP for Research and Technology, Tom Clarke reports that the NIEM Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) met recently and finished work on several important documents, while continuing work on other key policies.  The committee has defined a comprehensive list of quality assurance measures for NIEM, defined a comprehensive set of tool requirements in support of NIEM, and agreed on a conceptual approach that enables NIEM domains to issue their own version updates between major NIEM releases. 

The committee also completed work on the Naming and Design Rules (NDR) Version 1.3, which provides conformance guidance for the NIEM data model and IEPD's built using it.  In the coming months, NTAC will work with the other NIEM governance committees to prioritize the implementation of quality assurance measures and tool interface definitions.  Finally, NTAC recommends that no major NIEM release occur before at least early 2010.

Joint Technology Committee Approves E-Filing Standard Update

The Joint Technology Committee (JTC) of COSCA and NACM recently approved the use of the OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing (ECF) Standard Version 3.1 after technical review by the Court Information Technology Officers' Consortium (CITOC).  The LegalXML Technical Committee is on the verge of issuing Version 4.0, which adds several case types and brings the standard into full compliance with both NIEM 2.0 and the Justice Reference Architecture.  We also understand that there are also several pilots of the e-filing technical standard underway in state and local court systems.

Trends Article on Tablet PCs

The NCSC's Trends articles has introduced an article on Tablet Personal Computers with pictures of the format options, and links to three articles posted by an attorney that uses them. In addition, one of the articles has an interesting note on a Tablet PC forms software application that could be useful in the courtroom.

NAJIS Conference Scheduled

The National Association for Justice Information Systems (NAJIS) has scheduled their annual conference for September 23-26, 2008 at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their E-mail states: "Designed by practitioners for practitioners.  This is a law and justice technology professional conference that delivers unprecedented objectivity, quality, and quantity of information exchanged through the NAJIS membership." Having been a member of NAJIS I can attest to the usefulness of this conference and to the helpfulness of the associations membership.