Judge Michael Marcus – The Passing of a Court Tech Pioneer

Hon. Michael Marcus

Last month we were saddened to hear of the passing of Judge Michael Marcus formerly of the Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) Circuit Court.  I had the great pleasure of knowing Michael since the late 1990’s because of his work in developing the concept of “Smart Sentencing”.   A video of a presentation Judge Marcus made on his work from 2010 is available here.

Judge Marcus also wrote one of the most popular articles in the history of the Court Tech Bulletin about his "Search for a Quiet Keyboard” in 2007.

But back to the main subject below.

This and That in Court Technology – August, 2017

https://goo.gl/PLWoi1

A big CTC-2017 promotion (especially if you are hungry), an upcoming JTC webinar, big E-filing news, Wyoming court automation fees introduced, space and cost savings by the US Federal Courts, and a little tip in this month’s court tech news amalgamation.

Blockchain for Criminal Charge Tracking?

https://goo.gl/qv8unC

A recent question to the NCSC Community bulletin board regarding Blockchain technology led to the following thoughts regarding its potential use in one of the most difficult problems we have faced in the justice community since the 1970’s, criminal charge tracking.  We discuss below.

NCSC Releases New Report on Court Privacy Policy

A State Justice Institute supported report, “Best Practices for Court Privacy Policy Formulation” authored by three of our NCSC colleagues, Tom Clarke, Jannet Lewis and Di Graski has just been released.  The report begins:

"As state and local courts progressively convert their business processes from paper to electronic formats, policies around remote electronic access to court case information by the public become ever more important.  COSCA last addressed this issue comprehensively in 2002 with a report authored by Martha Steketee and Alan Carlson that proposed a model policy for public access.  At that time, few courts had implemented electronic filing, so the model policy addressed both manual and electronic access.  In the fifteen years since then, courts have learned a lot about living in an electronic world and providing remote access to their case data and documents.  Consequently, there is a need to update what we know about this topic and revise the model policy."

August 31, 2017 revision -- click here to access the updated paper. 

Cobb County Georgia Issues Court Tech RFI

Cobb County (“County”) invites qualified technology companies (“Responders”) to submit written information about their ability to provide the modules needed to support countywide court and justice partner operations and case management with the goal of providing better access to justice and improving internal efficiencies.

This and That in Court Technology – July, 2017

Library of Congress Exhibition Image

This month's news about court technology and related topics includes CTC 2017 Experts, a proposed American Bar Association resolution, 10 tips for IT administrators to deal with password lockout, Margaret Hagan's artwork and observations from the NACM/IACA conference, the Center for Court Innovation's treatment courts online training offerings, the IJIS Institute announces a new Executive Director, and the Library of Congress exhibition, "Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration".

North Carolina AOC Issues RFI for CMS Evaluation

North Carolina Supreme Court building

The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts is currently researching the services to assess the current integrated case management systems in the market place that will best fit the existing and future needs of the NCAOC.

 Additional information about the NCAOC can be viewed at its website www.nccourts.org.

The information gathered from this RFI will be used to identify vendors that can provide the systems needed to meet the needs of the Technology Services Division’s technical and infrastructure requirements.

Interested parties must submit a response package no later than 2:00 pm (EDT), July 31, 2017.

The full RFI (PDF format) is available at: https://www.ips.state.nc.us/IPS/AGENCY/PDF/11967000.pdf

Loomis vs. Wisconsin Cert Denied

The Supreme Court of the United States denied cert in a case asking to expose the risk algorithm used by Northpointe's COMPAS system.

Event Time

In the CCMS series we wrote about events and tasks.  In that article, we mentioned event weights that reflects the amount of work that was expended on that event.  But there is another way that we can augment the event record.  We explain.

Not Just Police Body Cams

GoPro Pet Camera Mounts

A recent Pennsylvania appellate court decision points out that the record keepers will deal with more than just law enforcement body camera evidence. Courts are having to deal with video evidence from many sources.

CTC 2017: Is your courthouse prepared for a cyber attack?

The CTC-2017 opening keynote speaker is Mark Lanterman, chief technology officer at Computer Forensic Services in Minneapolis.

He will talk about recent high-profile cyber attacks that have victimized businesses, hospitals, and government agencies. He also will tell us about cyber threats that could specifically hurt the courts, such as “The Dark Web,” “The Internet of Things,” and phishing, among other things.

Also, the full detailed conference schedule is also now available once you have created an account.  It's quick and easy to do.

This and That in Court Tech – June, 2017

https://www.travelwisconsin.com/ 

In this month’s news roundup we learn about Wisconsin's E-filing activities, news about Ravel Law and Court Innovations, Google's improved ability in language recognition, and some notes about improving communication understanding.

And last, some CTC 2017 educational program agenda news.

Technology Solutions for Self-Represented Litigants

The University of Denver's Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) announced the release of Court Compass: Mapping the Future of User Access Through Technology, a compendium and analysis of court-offered solutions for self-represented litigants (SRLs), along with maturity models to guide the development of integrated solutions in courts nationwide. See this recent post on the IAALS Online Issues Blog for more details.

IAALS is also participating with a number of other organizations, including the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), on the newly formed OASIS Litigant Portal Technical Committee (LP TC). 

The LP TC will be developing technical standards for litigant portal interfaces that will expedite and simplify development of solutions to assist potential litigants without legal representation overcome barriers of cost and complexity. The work of the LP TC will leverage experiences in recent portal projects as well as requirements identified in a 2015 report titled Building a Litigant Portal: Business and Technical Requirements. Any OASIS member may participate on the LP TC. If you're interested but not yet a member of OASIS, information on how to join is available here.

Courts Could Help to Protect Drivers from Traffic Ticket Phishing E-mail

CyberheistNews posted an article about “the NY State Department of Motor Vehicles warning about a phishing scam where New York drivers are being targeted, stating they have 48 hours to pay a fine or have their driver's license revoked.” In this post, we share some ideas that courts may consider to help to reduce or eliminate this problem.

Tyler Technologies Acquires Modria

Via press release on May 30, 2017 -Tyler Technologies, Inc. announced it has acquired Modria, a company specializing in online dispute resolution (ODR) for government and commercial entities, to complement its courts and justice and appraisal and tax solutions.

CTC 2017 Early Bird Deadline Extended to May 31st

Salt Palace Convention Center

CTC 2017 is only about 100 days away! Are you registered yet?

CTC 2017 features five tracks this year (plus the usual bonus of a separate sponsor track). This year’s sessions will focus on:

• Show Me the Data!
• Next Generation Courts
• Maintaining Public Trust and Confidence
• User-Friendly Courts
• Looking to the Future

Check out some of the highlighted sessions in each track, and keep your eyes open for the complete agenda, coming very soon!

Register before May 31st to get the early bird rate of $750.00. Once you register, you’ll be able to secure your hotel room from one of the four great properties, all within walking distance of the Salt Palace Convention Center.

Click here to go to the registration webpage.

Also - click on the registration drop-down menu to learn about the McMillan Scholarship opportunity.  Submissions are due June 19, 2017.

This and That in Court Technology - May, 2017

New US Courts Jury Kiosks

In this month's news we learn about Michigan's E-filing RFP award, two new court tech announcement from the US Federal Courts, new ideas from the Open Law Lab blog on service process in Massachusetts, the Supreme Court of India's new CMS/E-filing system, the 2016 Judicial Effectiveness Index for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and about the 2017 E-Sign Records Conference to be held in San Francisco later this year.

JTC releases "Courts Disrupted" paper . . .

The Joint Technology Committee (JTC) has released a new Resource Bulletin titled “Courts Disrupted.” This paper takes a captivating look at today’s fast-changing world of innovation and public expectations. Recognizing courts will not remain untouched by disruptive innovation, the paper encourages embracing rather than resisting the opportunities to improve business processes and make justice more readily available to a wider audience.

Microsoft AI Services are Getting Real

Brussels Atomium

An excellent article posted on arstechnica.com on May 10, 2107  titled: “Microsoft’s bid to bring AI to every developer is starting to make sense”.  The subtitle is: “The API’s are getting good enough to be built into production systems”.  This is getting interesting.  More on the article below.

DC Courts Compile Report on Remote Public Access to Electronic Court Records

Prepared by the Remote Access to Court Electronic Records (RACER) Committee of the Council for Court Excellence, and assisted by the National Center for State Courts, with funding by the State Justice Institute, the committee released their report in April 2017 on public access to electronic court records.

More From CourtHack 2.0

As promised, we have more details and now video from CourtHack 2.0.

Tech Notes – April, 2017

CourtHack 2017 Champions

News about CourtHack 2017, a podcast on law enforcement body-worn cameras and the courts, and more from Alabama on court records policy.

Handwritten Signatures - "Now a Punchline" - Part 4

There is a new example in our continuing series on traditional handwritten signatures being used to fake court documents has surfaced.  More below.

This and That in Court Tech – April, 2017

Illinois' Abraham Lincoln
statue in London

In this round-up of news, we hear about E-filing in Illinois, Identity Theft in Alabama, the NAJIS annual conference, Foxit PDF on forms, warnings about legal chatbots, an article on court/legal algorithmic projects, and an interesting cloud adoption survey results article.

Structuring Documents – Why and How

The challenge we have as courts is to turn documents into actionable information.  We most commonly do this by re-entering data into the case management systems database.  The courts can and should do better by using the software that most everyone already owns.  We discuss below.