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/?/

NIEM National Training Event Deadline Approaching

An e-mail blast dated March 10, 2009 announced the deadline for submissions in response to the Call for Papers and Participation for the 2009 NIEM National Training Event to be held at the Hilton Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland from September 30 to October 2, 2009 is fast approaching.  Click here to download the Call for Papers PDF document.

Tweeting the Courtroom

A March 6, 2009 Associated Press story titled Twitter boosts public access to federal courtrooms reports on the use by a reporter of the: microblogging service Twitter to provide constant updates from a racketeering gang trial.

COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee Solicits Review

On March 9, 2009 the Joint Technology Committee JTC of the Conference of State Court Administrators COSCA and the National Association for Court Management NACM are soliciting review of, and comments on the following standards:

• LegalXML Electronic Court Filing 3.1 ECF 3.1 – This version is conformant with the GJXDM
• LegalXML Electronic Court Filing 4.0 ECF 4.0 – This version is conformant with the NIEM

And additional standards relating to Information Sharing for:

• Drug Court Test Request GJXDM
• Drug Court Test Results GJXDM
• Drug Court Case Folder NIEM
• Drug Court Test Request and Results NIEM
• Child Support Request for Remedy GJXDM
• Child Support Court Order GJXDM
• Child Welfare Dependency Petition NIEM
• Child Welfare Adjudication Order NIEM
• NCSC State Court Statistical Guide Submissions NIEM

For more information please download the Request for Comment and Review document PDF.  Comments are due on or before May 15, 2009.

Nevada Supreme Court Expands E-filing

A press release issued on February 19, 2009 announced that the Nevada Supreme Court would begin accepting electronic filing of documents for criminal cases effective on February 23rd.   The press release stated:

The new process is expected to save time and money for the Supreme Court, as well as for attorneys and their clients. No longer will attorneys with criminal appeal cases have to ship or deliver supporting documents to the Supreme Court.
In preparation for the move to e-filing, Supreme Court staff conducted training sessions this year and late last year for a total of nearly 200 attorneys and support staff at both ends of the state. Training was conducted for three days in Las Vegas, two days in Reno, and one day in Carson City. Training will also be offered at the Family Law Conference in Ely in March and a training DVD that includes information from the earlier presentations is in development.

10 Cents a Gigabyte

Another landmark day in computer technology occurred recently.  I received an ad selling a 1 terabyte disk drive for $89.99 or 10 cents per gigabyte.  Now for comparison what does this mean?  A survey of the Arizona courts found that the paper files both current and past in more than 170 courts could fit on less than 3 terabytes or $270 less tax and shipping worth of drives.  Of course in a real server situation we would want to do a RAID, etc. But the achievement is significant nonetheless.  Other numbers listed in the ad show that the drive would hold:

• 424 two-hour DVD-quality movies or-
  
• 1500 hours of VHS-quality video or
• 880 days of around-the-clock MP3 audio or
• 373,000 vivid digital photos or
• 2132 action-packed games!

Mississippi State Courts Developing E-Filing

The Mississippi State Court system have been working toward a comprehensive case management and electronic filing system since 2004. In 2007 they reached an agreement with the US Federal Courts to gain access to their CM/ECF technology to adapt to the state courts.
Recently, a January 15, 2009 article Judicial System to Launch E-filing in The Mississippi Press states that:

"The project would allow judges and attorneys to file court documents electronically through the Mississippi Electronic Court system. Litigants also would be able to view documents online and the state would control public accessibility to chancery, circuit or county court documents.
Participation by trial courts will be voluntary and a Madison County pilot program will be launched early this year."

NIEM Case Study - NYC Health and Human Services

The January, 2009 edition of the NIEM Newsletter contains a NIEM Case Study from the New York City Health and Human Services-CONNECT project. The project demonstrates the flexibility of the NIEM standard in that they have used it to create a system for an online School Meal application. The article describes the system:

"The parents submit household and income information through the Curam-based application, which is then stored in a relational database. A nightly batch job extracts the data from the database and creates a separate eXtensible Markup Language XML document, using the NIEM-compliant exchange schema, for each submitted application. The XML documents are encrypted and securely transmitted to the DOE Department of Education for processing."

New Tech - iPaper

While reading some financial reports this past weekend on the Internet, the author stumbled across the iPaper technology from Scribd in San Francisco.

The technical idea of the iPaper application is that it allows the normal document formats to be converted to Flash format and then embedded in a website.nbsp Since it uses Flash, the user avoids the need to download documents while maintaining all of the graphical presentation features.nbsp The obvious benefit is better control of documents that are posted on ones website. nbsp nbsp

Texas Creates Child Support Case Management Standards

In 2008, the Texas Courts created a wealth of design documents and functional requirements for their Texas Data-Enabled Courts for Kids project. The project website notes that the purpose was to help ensure that foster childrens needs for safety, permanency and well-being are met in a timely and complete manner by data-enabling courts to ensure they have the information needed to make appropriate decisions. The full TexDeck project website can be found at: http://www.courts.state.tx.us/oca/texdeck/txdeck-home.asp

US Federal Courts Create eJuror System

The December, 2008 edition of the US Federal Courts, The Third Branch newsletter contained an article titled: On-Line eJuror Cuts Costs, Saves Time. The article begins - You can shop on the Web, pay bills on-line, even file income tax returns electronically. Why not submit your juror qualification questionnaire and summons information forms on-line?

Correspondingly, the E-Courts Conference 2009 contained a session by Travis County, Texas on their I-Jury system. You can download their presentation in PDF format here.

E-Courts 2008 Presentations Available

Presentations from the E-Courts 2008 conference that was held in Las Vegas, Nevada from December 8-10, 2008 are now available online. Nearly 500 persons attended the conference that featured presentations from judges, court professionals, technologists, academics, and vendors. The conference website can be found at: http://www.e-courts.org

NIEM Traning Course Available Online

A December 12, 2008 e-mail announced that the National Information Exchange Model NIEM Practical Implementers Course is now available in an online, eLearning environment. This new format helps to address the growing demand for the course through innovative use of Web-based technology. The course provides a free, open-enrollment educational environment to support flexibility, course demand, and cost effectiveness to address the needs of the NIEM-user community.


NIEM and the NIEM educational programs are funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance BJA, the Department of Justice DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security DHS, and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment PM-ISE. The NIEM Practical Implementers eLearning Course was built with content from the successful traditional classroom version of the course by leveraging existing capabilities at the National Center for State Courts NCSC and with support from the IJIS Institute, SEARCH, and representatives from private industry.

The NIEM Practical Implementers eLearning Course instructs students on how to use NIEM by breaking it down into two distinct parts. The first part covers Extensible Markup Language XML concepts required to understand and work with NIEM. The second part addresses the higher-level implementation concepts and the steps necessary to build an information exchange using NIEM.

The online learning environment enables students to proceed at their own pace. Instructors will be available to answer any questions along the way, as well as to provide technical support in using the eLearning system.
The eLearning format includes the same case study materials and assignments featured in the traditional classroom version of the course, and instructors will accept and review the assignments to help students fully grasp the NIEM concepts taught during the course. Course topics are the same for both the traditional classroom and the eLearning course and include Anatomy of an XML Exchange, Basic XML and Advanced XML Schema for NIEM, Substitution Groups and Extension Schemas, IEPD Concepts and Exchange Content Modeling, Mapping and Subset Schema, and Packaging, Distribution, and Implementation.


To access and register for the NIEM Practical Implementers eLearning Course, visit http://www.niem.gov/elearning.php. Questions about the course can be directed to training@ijis.org.

IE Browser Security Vulnerability

There is important news that has recently surfaced regarding attacks on the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser versions 5.01, 6, and 7. An article I received reports a huge increase in computer attacks exploiting this vulnerability. Unfortunately, there is not a corrective patch available yet from Microsoft. So you might consider using an alternative browser for general surfing for the near future and yes for you Mac folks you are safe. Please also make sure that your Windows Update either set for automatic update or enable the update notice. Generally at this time I would suggest only using IE for sites that have your full confidence such as your bank and well-known store websites. In other words, be careful out there.

Here is the link to the ComputerWorld magazine article: http://tinyurl.com/6nercd

CTC 2009 Call for Ideas

The Court Technology Conference 2009 has posted the "Call for Ideas and Participation" document (PDF) for download.  The conference is looking for presentations in all manner of court related technology, policy, and management subject areas.  The CTC 2009 conference will be held in Denver, Colorado from September 22-24, 2009.

NIEM News - November, 2008

The National Information Exchange Model(NIEM) project has posted the Production Release 2.0 document on their website.  In addition, the NIEM Naming and Design Rules (NDR) 1.3 document has been posted. The document is open for a 30-day public review period.

US Courts Celebrates 20 Years for PACER System

PACER Coming Into Its Own at 20, an article in the November, 2008 edition of The Third Branch newsletter, celebrates the pioneering electronic public access system. The article notes that PACER began life as a dial-up bulletin board system that later migrated to Internet technology. Uptake grew "from a dozen participating courts, PACER has grown to include all bankruptcy, district, and appellate courts. From 9,000 registered user accounts in 1994, PACER grew to 900,000 registered accounts by 2008. This fiscal year alone, PACER added 134,000 new users." It is a true success story.

E-Discovery Casebook Published

On November 10, 2008, West announced the publication of "Electronic Discovery and Digital Evidence: Cases and Materials".  The book was co-authored by the Hon. Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York, US Federal Court and Professor Dan Capra of Fordham University Law School.  The press release notes:

"This casebook is the first in its field on electronic discovery and digital evidence. Judge Scheindlin, the author of the landmark Zubulake opinions, is a leading author on electronic discovery issues in the federal judiciary. Professor Capra is the Reporter to the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, a co-author of a five-volume treatise on evidence, and the principal author of Rule 502. Members of The Sedona Conference® Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production, which published The Sedona Principles and is cited by courts and litigators on a daily basis, contributed commentary and practical guidance."

For information on ordering the book, go to:
http://www.westacademic.com/Professors/ProductDetails.aspx?productid=147221&tab=1