New IJIS Blog

A good friend of the NCSC, Mr. Paul Wormeli who is the Executive Director of the IJIS Institute has started a new blog on innovative information technologies and how they apply to justice information sharing and related topics.  He states in his introductory e-mail that:

"We are engaged as a nation in such a radical transformation of the role of IT in government that we need a place to provoke discussion and dialog about how information technology can be used to create useful social outcomes, particularly as it applies to the fields of justice, public safety and homeland security. We also need to ponder how innovative new information technologies, particularly those that might be classed as disruptive, can be explained and presented to the stakeholders in government and industry and therefore applied to practical purpose."

Virginia Institutes Mandatory Videoconferencing

Last week during our visit to the courts in Campbell County, Virginia we learned that in the 2009 session the General Assembly of Virginia amended the law to mandate use of videoconferencing by the state's District Courts.  The bill, H-2108, signed on February 25, 2009 states:

"If two-way electronic video and audio communication is available for use by a district court for the conduct of a hearing to determine bail or to determine representation by counsel, the court shall use such communication in any such proceeding that would otherwise require the transportation of a person from outside the jurisdiction of the court in order to appear in person before the court."

The statute previously permitted documents to be sent electronically and signatures treated as original signatures.

NIEM Tools

The April 2009 of the NIEM National Information Exchange Model Newsletter contains the article: NIEM Tools: An In-Depth Look by Marc Clifton.  In the article Mr. Clifton highlights the various software design tools that have been made available by the project. Tools discussed in the article are:

•      Search and navigate NIEM part of the Subset Schema Generation Tool SSGT.
•      Build Schema Subset using SSGT.
•      Map Information Exchange.
•      Work With Information Exchange Package Documents IEPDs.
•      Generate Code List Schemas.
•      Obtain Migration Assistance.

Israel CMS studied

We recently stumbled across an interesting article by Prof. Orna Rabinovich-Einy that was published in the Spring 2008 issue of the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology titled: Beyond Efficiency: The Transformation of Courts Through Technology PDF link. The paper notes that while technological advances have benefited the court system, procedural changes are also needed.  The paper also notes that the Israel system has a service where attorneys can sign up for a secure government/court supplied E-mail address for $30 for three years as a means to improve security and communications.

CTC 2009 Blog

Highlights of the upcoming CTC 2009 conference that will be held in Denver, Colorado from September 22-24, 2009 are being written about in the conference blog. 

US Federal Courts Highlight Technology Efforts

The April, 2009 edition of the US Federal Courts Newsletter, The Third Branch, is chock full of technology related articles.  They are:

• Court of Appeals Use E-Technology to Deliver Opinions
• Innovative IT Programs Link Automation with Court Business Processes four innovative technology projects funded by the Edwin L. Nelson Local Initiatives Program for fiscal year 2009.
• New Jersey E-Filing Forum Big Draw for Attorneys
• Courts Sign Up to Offer Juror-Friendly Webpage

Congratulations to the US Federal Courts for extending and taking advantage of new technology opportunities.

Abu Dhabi Introduces New CMS

According to an article in Gulfnews, on April 7, 2009 the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department announced the introduction of their new court case management system.  

An Interview with Federal Judge Rosemary M. Collyer

The March, 2009 edition of the US Federal Courts newsletter, The Third Branch, contains a very interesting interview with District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer who served as chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Information Technology in 2008. 

E-Ink in the Courts

We have heard rumors here at NCSC headquarters in Williamsburg that there are judges who have started to use E-Ink technology based devices such as the Amazon Kindle to read and work with their electronic documents.  I remember reading about E-Ink technology in the early 1990’s during its initial development by Xerox PARC the Palo Alto Research Center lab.  E-Ink is a display screen technology that uses:

"millions of tiny microcapsules, about the diameter of a human hair. In one incarnation, each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule where they become visible to the user.  "

For a picture of what this looks like and the rest of this explanatory article, click here.

So what is so great about this technology?  The answer is… persistence.  Once the screen image is updated by the tiny computer inside the device, it holds the image.  In other words, the image is persistent and doesn’t change.  This also means that the reader device uses very little power since it is not continually renewing the display; and thus it can be used for literally days if not weeks before a battery charge is required.  Reports are that the devices are both very lightweight, under 1 pound, and are easier on the eyes to read.

Now judges just don’t read documents, they interact with them.  The Amazon Kindle 2 has a keyboard and a note taking and bookmark capability.  A competitor company, iRex Technologies offers a larger screen device, the Digital Reader 1000S that allows handwritten notes to be added to the documents.  In addition, the devices can be linked via WiFi and the Internet to electronic book and newspapers services to download the latest novel or edition.

For one user’s experience using the Kindle click here.

For a good matrix of the available E-Ink readers in the USA click here.

Finally, please let us know your experience with these E-Ink devices and we’ll pass them along on the CTB.  Happy E-Reading!

Online Lecture: The Business of Public Access to Court Records

Recently we found an online video lecture and slideshow from the Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy presented by Stephen Schultze from Harvard’s Berkman Center and Shubham Mukherjee, a third year law student on the amount of money that the US Federal Courts PACER system generates along with accompanying issues and activities.  The website intro states:

"As government documents are increasingly digitized and put online, two orthogonal approaches to distributing these documents have developed. Under one approach, the documents are made easily and freely accessible. In others, the government retains or introduces barriers to access that are inspired by traditional physical access. When these barriers are fee-based, the government can inadvertently create downstream monopolies or architectures of control over public information."

To enjoy the lecture go to:

http://citp.princeton.edu/events/lectures/stephen-schultze-and-shubham-mukherjee/?/