CATO Updates Website

The Conference of Appellate Technology Officials (CATO) announced that they had recently updated their website at: http://www.appellatetechs.org/  The website also contains information on their Annual Conference scheduled for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in August.

NIEM Leader Recognized

The February 1, 2008 NIEM Newsletter contained an article regarding Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff's speech recognizing CIO, Ms. Donna Roy's efforts.  The article stated:


"In a speech to the DHS Law Enforcement Shared Mission Community Conference, Secretary Michael Chertoff took the time to recognize the important work of the Office of the CIO in DHS in promoting information sharing.  He noted that “enterprise data management is an essential ingredient of an effective information sharing program, and the work of OCIO, and in particular Donna Roy, deserves recognition."

Sterns County Minnesota Tests E-Court Ideas

The St. Cloud Times in Minnesota notes in an article titled "Courts look to improve availability and reduce paper" the efforts in Sterns County State's Attorney and District Court to move toward electronic support systems.  One example listed is that "Stearns County already has wired a courtroom that one day could allow attorneys to leave many of their paper files behind and rely instead on digital case files in juvenile court hearings. It's a small step toward what could be the court system of the future — largely paperless and accessible by attorneys, judges, court staff and the public via computer."

National Offender Defendant System

The December , 2007 edition of US Federal Courts newsletter, The Third Branch contains an article on the National Offender Defendant System (NODS). "It combines access to Judiciary personnel on PeopleFinder, which helps locate probation and pretrial services officers, as well as all the defendant/offender information on the Probation/Pretrial Services Automated Case Tracking System (PACTS), all the case information on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, and violations in the Central Violations Bureau’s system." The article goes on to state: "NODS was originally designed exclusively for use by Judiciary staff, but according to" (Chief of the Probation and Pretrial Services Technology Division, Nick) "DiSabatino, another version—with limited features—is in the works for an external audience. The outside version would, for example, link to a limited version of PeopleFinder, and not link to PACER."

NIEM - Did You Know?

Did you know that the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) website contains links to resources and tools that can help you work with the standard?  One resource is the NIEM Mapping Tool developed by Georgia Tech Research Institute.  It will let you "create and exchange, associate a domain model with that exchange, map the domain model to NIEM, and generate artifacts - such as mapping reports, wantlists, and schemas - based on that mapping." To go to the Mapping Tool website, click here

Technology to Watch

We recommend that court technology planners monitor the progress and implications of the upcoming auction of radio frequency spectrum and the creation of a shared public safety wireless broadband network by the Public Safety Spectrum Trust.

On November 15, 2007 the US Federal Communications Commission selected the non-profit Public Safety Spectrum Trust Corporation (PSST) to hold the license for 10 MHz of public safety radio spectrum designated for nationwide wireless broadband use.  The concept for the broadband network “is to have priority access for public safety to a nationwide, interoperable wireless broadband network that incorporates the latest technologies in use by the private sector”.  As noted in an article in Police Chief Magazine by PSST Chairman, Chief Harlin McEwen these benefits potentially include:

• “Broadband data services (such as text messaging, photos, diagrams, and streaming video) currently unavailable in existing public safety land mobile systems”
• “A hardened public safety network with infrastructure built to withstand local natural hazards (tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, etc.) that would include strengthened towers and backup power with fuel supplies to withstand long-term outages of public power sources”
• “Nationwide roaming and interoperability for local, state, and federal public safety agencies (police, fire, and emergency medical services) and other emergency services such as transportation, health care, and utilities”
• “Access to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) similar to current commercial cellular services”
• “Push-to-talk, one-to-one, and one-to-many radio capabilities that would provide a backup to (but would not replace) traditional public safety land mobile mission-critical voice systems”
• “Access to satellite services to provide reliable nationwide communications where terrestrial services either do not exist or are temporarily out of service”

For more information see the Public Safety Spectrum Trust website.

Massachusetts Courts Laud Videoconferencing

An article titled "Patchy reception for TV justice" by the Boston Herald newspaper noted that the Massachusetts trial courts have been using videoconferencing technology since 1993.  However, despite it's success and resulting cost savings "neither the trial court nor the prison system have plans to expand the program".

Federal Courts Provide Free Records Access

The December, 2007 edition of The Third Branch newsletter contained an article on a pilot program being offered by the Administrative Office of the US Courts and the US Government Printing Office to provide "free public access to federal court records available at 16 libraries in 14 states."  The article goes on to state:

"The project offers free access to the federal Judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system at 16 participating federal depository libraries. PACER (www.pacer.uscourts.gov) allows users to obtain case file documents, listings of all case parties, judgments, and other information from district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts online, with the data immediately available for printing or downloading."

E-Courts 2008 Conference

E-Courts 2008 will be held at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada from December 8-10.   Session subject matter will include criminal case E-filing; electronic record archiving; and electronic information presentation.  Watch the conference website  for more information at: http://www.e-courts.org/

XML/NIEM Training Available

We learned from Scott Chontow of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Policy & Planning Staff that there are approximately 10 training slots available for XML/NIEM training session to be held February 11-15, 2008 at the IJIS Institute in Northern Virginia. For more information contact Mr. Chontow via e-mail at: scott.chontow@usdoj.gov