OK: Making a search of online court records an official part of a background check for child care workers

The use of state court case management systems to run do-it-yourself background checks is common. There are a myriad of problems on relying solely on this of course, but the practice is not unheard of. Oklahoma, however, has taken it a step further and mandated these searches using the Oklahoma State Courts Network (OSCN).

Under HB 2643 of 2008, any person making an application to establish or operate a child care facility and their employees must first be run against OSCN, in addition to a national "criminal history records search."

SB 674 of 2011 clarifies the requirements and procedures for obtaining the OSCN and national criminal history records checks for individuals who own, work, live in, or have unsupervised access to children in child care facilities.

The 2011 bill appears likely to pass, having been approved by the Senate on March 10 and the House Human Services Committee on April 12.

Canadian Centre for Court Technology Announces New Director

Via press release, March 31, 2011:  The Board of Directors of the Canadian Centre for Court Technology - Centre canadien de technologie judiciaire (CCCT-CCTJ) today announced the appointment of Patrick Cormier as Chief Executive Officer.


The Co-Chairs of the Board, Ray Bodnarek, Deputy Attorney General of Alberta and Justice Frances Kiteley, Ontario Superior Court of Justice indicated that the members of the Board are delighted that Patrick had agreed to take on the responsibilities of CEO.

The Mandate for the CCCT is:

• to provide leadership, and act as a catalyst to bring together stakeholders in order to create an atmosphere favourable to technological innovation and excellence in our court systems so as to enhance access to justice;
• to support the preparation and promotion of guidelines and best practices needed to achieve interoperability among the various justice information systems;
• to provide the tools and activities needed to exchange information and share knowledge about successful and unsuccessful experiments in fields of justice technology, pertinent to the Canadian context;
• to play an active role in identifying and promoting best practices in relation to court technology and technology-related policies.

Patrick Cormier is a social media, technology and information management expert and president of Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc. His firm provides advice to government Departments and Agencies on how to best advance their information management and web 2.0 agenda. Prior to founding Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc., Mr. Cormier was a military lawyer from the Office of the Judge-Advocate General of the Canadian Forces. He regularly provides social media legal issues sessions to judges across the country under the auspices of the National Judicial Institute.  Patrick is familiar  with the CCCT-CCTJ as a result of his work as Intelleader for the Court Websites Intellaction Working Group which is tasked with preparing vendor-neutral guidelines to promote the modernization of Canadian court web sites.

A bilingual Quebec Bar Member, Patrick graduated from McGill University (common law and civil law programs) and from Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean in 1992 (B.Sc.).

Initially Patrick will serve on a part-time basis while he continues to operate his firm, Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc.

With the resounding success of the inaugural Forum on Court Technology in September 2010, the Board is looking to Patrick to  further establish CCCT-CCTJ’s presence as the leader in court technology in Canada.

More information on the Canadian Centre for Court Technology - Centre canadien de technologie judiciaire can be found at http://ccct-cctj.ca/

Texas bill would require courts, judicial agencies post "high-value data sets" online

Cross-posted to Gavel to Gavel.

Novelist and attorney George Higgins once quipped that "Data is what distinguishes the dilettante from the artist." Whether true or not, the press for data, especially from courts, is an ongoing saga.

Into this comes Texas' SB 701 of 2011. The bill, as approved on a 31-0 vote of the the Texas Senate last week, would require "state agencies" (which for these purposes include any "board, commission, office, department, or other agency in the...judicial...branch of state government") to post high-value data sets online. Said "high-value data" must:

1. be raw data;
2. in an open standard format that allows the public to search, extract, organize, and analyze the information;
3. accessible from the the agency's Internet website home page under a uniform resource locator suffix "data"; and
4. be not more than two mouse clicks from the agency's Internet website home page

So, what is a "high-value data set"? According to the bill, it includes any information that meets any of the following criteria:

1. can be used to increase state agency accountability and responsiveness
2. improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations
3. further the core mission of the agency
4. create economic opportunity
5. respond to need and demand as identified through public consultation

Explicitly excluded is any information that is confidential or protected from disclosure under state or federal law. But things get even more interesting in the other exceptions. Data need be posted if and only if the "state agency":

1. determines that, using existing resources, the agency can post the data set on the Internet website at no additional cost to the state; or
   
2. enters into a contract advantageous to the state under which the contractor posts the data set on the Internet website at no additional cost to the state; or
3. receives a gift or grant specifically for the purpose of posting one or more of the agency's high-value data sets on the Internet website.

The bill is currently pending in the House but not yet assigned to a committee.

Dirty Consultant Tricks

InfoWorld recently published an excellent article titled - 7 dirty consultant tricks (and how to avoid them).  Unfortunately I have seen every one of these done to courts (from afar) during my more than 20 years here at the NCSC.

Conversely, a comment on the article linked to this posting on "8 Client Types That Are Nothing But a Pain in the A**" that contains some interesting observations from the consultant's viewpoint.

My experience is that if the project is poorly defined and/or they want the consultant to be the project leader are ingredients in the "recipe for disaster".  As an FYI, we try to introduce good project management techniques in our Institute for Court Management class , Managing Technology Projects and Technology Resources that is available "in-person" and online.

Please read and learn.  It will help you and your organization to avoid pain in the future.

"E is Okay"

In a release the National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology wrote that Electronic Court Orders are allowable under federal guidelines.  The statement begins:

"The electronic exchange of information between courts and child welfare agencies is a powerful tool that can lessen children’s time in foster care and efficiently provide all parties with the information they need to make timely and informed decisions about child safety, permanency and well‐being.  As an increasing number of States move towards using automated information systems and electronic court orders, questions have been raised about whether electronic records are acceptable by Federal reviewers during a title IV‐E regulatory review.  We are happy to announce, Federal policy under title IV‐E of the Social Security Act indicates that “e” for electronic is okay.

Regulations set forth in 45 CFR 1356.71 govern the review process used to determine a State agency’s compliance with title IV‐E eligibility provisions.  As part of the Federal review process, the child’s service records, including all court orders, are examined to establish that the judicial requirements pertaining to title IV‐E are met.  These include judicial determinations relating to “contrary to the welfare” and “reasonable efforts” for children who are judicially removed and “best interest” for children removed through a voluntary placement agreement.  Chapter 3 of the “Title IV‐E Foster Care Eligibility Review Guide” contains relevant guidance about the use of electronic records in the regulatory review.  The guide states the following:

“The State agency may use electronic files to substantiate title IV‐E eligibility. If electronic files are used on site, the State agency should make computers and technical assistance available to the reviewers for viewing the electronic records or obtain hard copies of all the files or portions of the files that contain information relevant to the review. “"

To read the full statement (PDF) click here. 

Desktop Search Engines for the Forgetful

In recent years I have been desperately looking for a search engine that can deal with 20 plus years of electronic files that have built up on my desktop computer.  I’m sure that many of you have large amounts of documents, e-mails, and other files that in the “Age of Google”, should be instantly accessible.  In recent years I have tried several desktop search engines including ones from Microsoft, Google, and the ISYS (many years ago) and Copernic systems.  The only solution that I have found that meets my needs is named X1.  X1 started as the Yahoo search engine that was later developed for the individual desktop computer.  The X1 system has the ability to index both live and archived Microsoft Outlook e-mail as well as multiple versions of word processing documents including Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and OpenOffice.  And once indexed, I can search the titles and the contents of the documents and files.  And of course I am able to restrict the search by a particular directory or date range.

Finally, I am not alone at the NCSC in using automated search.  We use the Google Search Appliance to index everything available on the Center’s website on multiple systems.  You can try out this search online at the main NCSC website.  The search “box” is located in the upper right corner of the page.

For a list of desktop search engines click here.

Happy searching.

Advice for Keeping Judges (and the rest of us) Safe Online

An interview of Stacia A. Hylton, Director of the U.S. Marshals Service in the March, 2011 edition of the U.S. Federal Court's Third Branch Newsletter contained some advice for judge's online safety.

"The explosion of the use of social media on the Internet has created a number of security challenges for the judiciary. Social media, along with the availability of personal information and public records on the Internet, create an environment of additional security risks. One such risk is the potential for the release of sensitive information. This could be as simple as a family member inadvertently posting information about the family’s home. These items can jeopardize the security of a federal judge.

Public information continues to pose challenges to the court family. For many years, the Marshals Service has advised the people we protect to have unlisted phone numbers and use the courthouse address instead of the home address whenever possible. Technology has provided greater access to information. Through computers, individuals can plug a little information into a public record search engine and receive a lot of information. For that reason, we strongly urge judges and other officials to complete “opt-out” forms for individual information providers. We have coordinated with the Administrative Office so that the opt-out information is available for judges to follow. Judges also need to be very conscious about who they give information to, and even where purchases are made. This is because data aggregators are constantly compiling and selling updated personal information to public record sites, for example, matching credit card numbers with home mailing addresses.

We have also recently begun briefing judicial officers and staff on the risk posed by “geo-tagging” of photographs posted to the Internet. GPS-enabled cameras, as well as iPhones, embed the longitude and latitude of the location a picture was taken. If, for example, a photo of a judge and his or her family is posted on certain Internet sites, someone can grab the geo-tag and identify the location of a private residence.

Just as with e-mail or phone calls, if a judge becomes aware of a threat or inappropriate communication on the Web, he or she should immediately notify the Marshals."

NH: House advances bill to require courts use open source software and open data formats

Often, the judicial branch (not individual courts, but the entire branch) is treated legislatively like a "mere" agency and directed/ordered similarly with respect to state standards and statutes. New Hampshire HB 418 is no exception:

"State agency" means any department, commission, board, institution, bureau, office, or other entity, by whatever name called, including the legislative and judicial branches of state government, established in the state constitution, statutes, or executive orders.

HB 418 would have the judiciary and other "state agencies" use open source software and open data formats for their various systems. Moreover, the legislation requires the adoption of a statewide information policy regarding open government data standards through "consultation" with the executive branch's department of information technology. The department's commissioner would develop a statewide information policy based on principles spelled out in the bill.

Possible separation of powers arguments aside, the declarations made by the "general court" (in New Hampshire, the legislature is officially called the "general court") associated with the bill are notable in their own right as other states administratively, or yes even legislatively, try to grapple with the subject:

I. The general court finds that:

(a) The cost of obtaining software for the state’s computer systems has become a significant expense to the state;

(b) The personnel costs of maintaining the software on the state’s computers has also become a significant expense to the state;

(c) It is necessary for the functioning of the state that computer data owned by the state be permanently available to the state throughout its useful life;

(d) To guarantee the succession and permanence of public data, it is necessary that the state’s accessibility to that data be independent of the goodwill of the state’s computer system suppliers and the conditions imposed by these suppliers;

(e) It is in the public interest to ensure interoperability of computer systems through the use of software and products that promote open, platform-neutral standards;

(f) It is also in the public interest that the state be free, to the greatest extent possible, of conditions imposed by parties outside the state’s control on how, and for how long, the state may use the software it has acquired; and

(g) It is not in the public interest and it is a violation of the fundamental right to privacy for the state to use software that, in addition to its stated function, also transmits data to, or allows control and modification of its systems by, parties outside of the state’s control.

II. The general court further finds that:

(a) The acquisition and widespread deployment of open source software can significantly reduce the state’s costs of obtaining and maintaining software;

(b) Open source software guarantees that its encoding of data is not tied to a single provider;

(c) Open source software enables interoperability through adherence to open, platform-neutral standards;

(d) Open source software contains no restrictions on how, or for how long, it may be used; and

(e) Since open source software fully discloses its internal operations, it can be audited, at any time and by anyone of the state’s choosing, for internal functions that are contrary to the public’s interests and rights.

III. Therefore, it is in the public interest that the state of New Hampshire consider using open source software in its public computing functions.

Online Parking Violation Resolution System and More

Quick notes from news items that appeared this week...

Online Parking Dispute Resolution System

A New York Times article published on March 22, 2011 describes a new system that allows for internet parking ticket rebuttal.  The "online alternative ... allows residents to submit written rebuttals and upload supporting materials, like snapshots of where a missing traffic sign should be, to make their case" for disputing parking tickets.  The system also allows for online payment of fines for red light and bus lane camera violations.

"Split Screen" Trial Coverage from the Press Room

CBS News notes that the US Federal Court in San Franciso is using a three video camera "split screen" for reporters to view the trial from their press room in the courthouse.  The article also notes that Chief Judge Vaughn Walker " ready to make live coverage of the (earlier) same sex marriage trial available in federal courthouses across the country - and to the nation at large that night on YouTube. These plans were scuttled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling that restricted coverage to the inside of the Federal Building."

US Federal Courts Reports on Smart Phones in Courthouses

NetworkWorld.com blogger Michael Cooney posted an interesting article titled "Should smartphones be allowed in the courthouse?" on March 28, 2011.  The article lists both pros and cons for smart phones offered by the US Federal Courts Judicial Conference Committee ( for the full report in PDF click here ).  Some of the "pro" arguments included the fact that attorneys are reliant on the technology and the use of wireless technology by stenographic court reporters.  Some "cons" were disruption by the devices "ringing" even in "silent mode" and juror use.

Chris Crawford

We here at the NCSC were sad to learn of the passing of Chris Crawford this past weekend. Chris was a giant in the court consulting and technology world first as a court manager and later as the President of Justice Served that provided assistance to courts around the world. The photo below was taken at the CTC8 conference in Kansas City, Missouri from the projection of Chris’ face on the big screen during the Super Session presentation. That session was one of the first to include live video conferencing technology. In recent years Chris' support and efforts on behalf of the Forum for the Advancement of Court Technology (FACT) were key in many successful conference presentations and in the overall progress of the organization. Chris was also well known for his annual Top 10 Court Website list. His knowledge and humor will be sorely missed. His obituary with much more on Chris published in the Eureka, California Times-Standard newspaper is available by clicking here.

Chris "on the big screen" at CTC8

FBI Announces Next Generation Identification System

On March 08, 2011 the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation announced their next Generation Identification System (NGI), built by Lockheed Martin, delivers an incremental replacement of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). NGI provides automated fingerprint and latent search capabilities, electronic image storage, and electronic exchange of fingerprints to more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies and other authorized criminal justice partners 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Upon completion, NGI will have the ability to process fingerprint transactions more effectively and accurately.

“The implementation announced today represents a tremendous achievement in enhancing our identification services. Already, we’re seeing how the NGI system is revolutionizing fingerprint identification in support of the FBI’s mission,” said Louis E. Grever, executive assistant director, FBI Science and Technology Branch.

In addition to the new fingerprint identification technology, the NGI program has also delivered Advanced Technology Workstations to the FBI’s fingerprint examiner staff. The workstations include significantly larger display screens with higher resolution and true color support, allowing staff to see more detailed attributes of biometric data for more efficient decision-making."

The project's website can be seen at: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics/ngi/ngi2

CTC-2011 Keynote Speaker Announced

Prolific television writer and television personality David Pogue will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Court Technology Conference.    From his website:

“David Pogue writes the tech column for the New York Times every week, and in Scientific American every month. On TV, you may know him from his funny tech videos on CNBC every Thursday, or his stories for CBS Sunday Morning, or the NOVA miniseries he hosted on PBS, called "Making Stuff."

With over 3 million books in print, David is one of the world's bestselling how-to authors. He wrote or co-wrote seven books in the "for Dummies" series (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music); in 1999, he launched his own series of complete, funny computer books called the Missing Manual series, which now includes 120 titles.

David graduated summa cum laude from Yale in 1985, with distinction in Music, and he spent ten years conducting and arranging Broadway musicals in New York. He's won an Emmy, a Loeb award for journalism, and an honorary doctorate in music. He's been profiled on "48 Hours" and "60 Minutes." He lives in Connecticut with his three children. His web site is www.davidpogue.com.”

His “short” biography does not do justice to all of his activities and interest.  The tradition of interesting and thought provoking speakers at Court Technology Conferences continues.

Courts Have Always Charged Fees

In an earlier CTB post we noted a presentation by Prof. Stephen Schultze and graduate student Tim Lee that criticized several aspects of the US Federal Courts approach to public access to court information and in particular, the fees that are charged by the PACER system.

PACER currently allows for several queries per month for no charge.  It is only when they exceed that number of queries that users are charged (a FAQ regarding PACER can be found by clicking here).   In brief, it is the presenter’s contention that all of the information should be made available to the public for free.  And they have taken action by creating the RECAP program to help in this effort.  Unfortunately, history does not support this.

The UK courts website notes on a web page, appropriately named, “Why We Charge” that the tradition of court fees reaches back “to the 13th century”.

 “Fees have always been charged to users of the courts. Originally, fees were paid directly to the judges of the courts, who kept them personally, for the work they carried out…

The County Courts Act 1846 saw the creation of the court system (mostly how we know it today) and the introduction of judicial salaries. The Act provided that court fees would cover the full cost of running the courts, and through this, the courts would be self-funding.

Court fees paid for judges, clerks, bailiffs and accommodation. However, in 1856, it was accepted that judges’ salaries, buildings and ancillary expenses should be met by the taxpayer and not the court user through fees.”

Thus history teaches that the courts were conceived to be a “fee-based-service” to the public.  And current fees in federal and state courts for filing, e-filing, and records production are in that tradition.

The financial difficulties that nearly every government currently face also severely restricts the ability of the courts to make new services such as E-filing and E-Access free to the public.  One possible reason is that it is difficult to receive funding via the legislative process because it is nearly impossible to estimate a specific return on investment (ROI).  In contrast, a private corporation can seek a loan or investment (scenes from the recent movie, “The Social Network” are particularly appropriate) to expand their business technology and hopefully make more profit.  The courts and government are asked to “prove a negative”; that by investing in technology that costs will either be maintained, decrease, or reduce staff. Since many courts have already had to reduce staff due to budget cuts, they are understandably resistant to make this promise.

That said, I don’t know anyone in the courts that wouldn’t like to make all of the public services free.    But here is the rub.  Access fees can also potentially serve as a barrier for misuse of the court information.  Some courts have experience embarrassment when they made data freely available online that in turn exposed personal information that could be used for identity theft and crimes.   A fee serves as a small barrier to those who are using the information for commercial use in credit and background checks but a significant one for those who wish to “mine” data for mischievous purpose.  And from a court’s view, allowing commercial access is not necessarily a bad thing since it shifts the search and network bandwidth load from the court’s to the private commercial systems.   In summary, an access fee for information has additional benefits to the courts aside from revenue.

Now this is not to say that information cannot be accessed for free.  Nearly every court has some type of public access terminal in the courthouse where a person can search and find information.  But online and “bulk” data poses a different set of issues that in turn cost the courts to address.  In that case, fees can be justified by need and tradition.

Court Automation Projects Critiqued

Courts automation projects can greatly benefit from receiving well-reasoned and researched critiques.   Two projects recently received such input.

California CCMS

The California Court Case Management System audit report was published by the California State Auditor in February, 2011.  The Los Angeles Times newspaper noted in an article about the report :

“The state Judicial Council and court systems have spent $407 million so far on developing the system and have installed a limited version in seven counties, including Los Angeles and Sacramento. They plan to launch the full system in three counties — Ventura, San Diego and San Luis Obispo — as a next step.”

The California AOC responded to the report noting that they will adopt all of the audit report recommendations.  Justice Terence L. Bruiniers, chairman of the Judicial Council’s CCMS Executive Committee noted:

“We have increased Judicial Council oversight of the project; expanded the participation of justices, judges, court administrators, attorneys, and justice partners; and created a project management office.”

Additional information regarding the system and reports are posted at the California AOC CCMS website: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courtadmin/ccms/

Federal Court PACER

Prof. Stephen Schultze and graduate student, Tim Lee, of the Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy recently made a presentation at the New York University School of Law on the US Federal Court’s online systems and specifically PACER.  The presentation was video recorded and is available for online viewing (requires Microsoft Silverlight)

The presentation made several interesting points regarding current systems:

1. Current PACER limitations
2. Document authentication
3. Lack of document and data structure (XML)
4. The proposal to allow the private (and non-profit) world access to have bulk access to the information
5. A number of problems regarding sensitive and private information made available in PACER and options for corrective action.

There were also several points made regarding automation fees and budgets require a more extensive discussion for a later CTB article.

Colorado bill would create judicial public access system advisory board

Colorado's Judiciary has had a Public Access System (PAS) and Electronic Filing System (EFS) for years. According to their website "Over the next two years, the Colorado Judicial Branch’s PAS/EFS team will build a new electronic filing system that will replace the Branch’s current e-filing vendor by January 2013."

Enter Colorado HB 1282 of 2011.

The bill specifically provides a statutory obligation for the judicial department to provide a public access system for certain court records that direct-paying users and nonpaying users can access remotely. The bill prohibits the judicial department from restricting a direct-paying user from replicating the information on its system.

The bill also creates a Judicial Public Access System Advisory Board to govern the aforementioned system. The board would set the price schedule for access by direct-paying users and approve any changes to the schedule, determine what information will be available through the system and in what form it will be available, and address any other matter relevant to the system.

The board itself would consist of 9 members, including 4 legislators, 1 office of information technology (executive branch) staff member, 2 judicial department employees, and 2 vendors. The 2 judicial department employees (one of whom would chair the board) and 2 vendors would be selected by the chief justice.

The bill is currently pending in the House State, Veterans, & Military Affairs committee.

Cross-posted to Gavel to Gavel.

Florida Judge Using SharePoint for E-Filing

On February 17, 2011 Law Technology News published an article: Fla. Judge's 'Outlook on Steroids' Blazes E-Filing Trail.  The article describes how Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Israel Reyes has been using the collaboration capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint to facilitate electronic document communications with litigants in his court.  The article also unfortunately also details the requirement for paper copies to be transmitted and filed.

Federal Courts Issue Pocket Guide for Sealed Records

The February, 2011 edition of The Third Branch newsletter from the US Federal Courts contains an interesting article titled: "Pocket Guide for Federal Judges Focuses on Sealed Records, Proceedings".  "Published by the Federal Judicial Center, the 22-page pocket guide draws upon the voluminous case law the process courts use to keep some of their proceedings and records confidential." 
The guide is available online for download in PDF (244 Kb) by clicking here. 

The Future is Not Paper - Part 4

Syndicated Court Calendars

Court calendaring is simply a nightmare.  But as we all know, calendars are the grease in the court's wheels.  And without the structure and schedules, the judicial process would be chaos.  But while Case Management Systems have done a good job of being able to store preferences and automatically search for the next available time based upon a jurisdiction's complex rules, these capabilities and information sharing have not extended beyond the courthouse walls.

One brief example: In 2005, the Governor of the State of New Mexico, Bill Richardson asked the legislature for additional judges partly because of scheduling issues.  The Police Sergeant in charge of DWI crime in Albuquerque, NM reported that:

"scheduling nightmares abound for officers. In a single afternoon, he's been scheduled to attend three trials and three pretrial interviews. That's problematic because arresting officers are often the only witnesses in DWI cases so many are dismissed when officers fail to appear in court. 

"I have eight officers on this unit, and they make 2,200 to 2,500 DWI arrests a year," Brown said. "When I get a (failure to appear) notice on one of them, I research it, and a lot of times I find that one officer was scheduled in 12 different courtrooms in the morning alone."(see Endnote 1)

Courts use primarily manual processes to calendar and schedule (I've even seen white boards).  The current "technologies" are:

• The automated CMS for setup and recording the core calendar structure and scheduling events.
• Telephone and E-mail with voice and manual negotiation by staff (calendar clerks and judicial assistants) and requesting attorneys, paralegals, and litigants.
• Face-to-face meetings (in courtrooms, chambers, etc.) with everyone consulting their individual calendars is one of the most common ways that schedules are set.
• And even a few courts employing instant messaging
• All methods employ a lot of personal time and effort to communicate even the most basic information.  

But there are some interesting ideas that have been developing in recent years that could be part of a future solution.  John Udell is a "Technology Evangelist" with Microsoft Corporation and formerly a columnist with  InfoWorld and the "classic" Byte magazines as well as a person who's writings I follow closely via his blog.

In recent years he became interested in problems surrounding calendars and their inefficiency and ineffectiveness.  And this past December (2010) he gave a talk at Harvard University Law School's Berkman Center.(see Endnote 2).  The video webcast for online or download viewing can be found at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2010/12/udell   In the talk he explains his "elmcity project" that created a web enabled community calendar supporting "information syndication".

There are a lot of ideas in that last sentence and so let's break it down:

1. Web Enabled - meaning that it can easily send and receive information using internet standards.
2. Community - meaning shared and open.
3. Information syndication - meaning you can subscribe to personally receive the information being shared in the calendar.

Now doesn't something like that sound like there are some ideas in there that might make the tortured world of court calendaring and scheduling easier?  I think so; and therefore let's continue.

Specifically as he writes in his blog post about elmcity and his Harvard talk:

• Realize that event data published in a structured format, unlike data published as HTML or PDF, can be routed through a publication/subscription syndication networks.
• Make public calendars available in the appropriate structured format: iCalendar (RFC 5545), the venerable Internet standard supported by all major calendar applications and services.
• Recognize that iCalendar is the RSS of calendars. It can enable a calendar-sphere in which, as in the blogosphere, everyone can publish their own feeds and also subscribe to feeds from other people  or from network services.
• Help build the data web by owning the parts of it for which we ourselves are the authoritative  sources.

Let's talk about this iCalendar standard.  Nearly everyone uses the iCalendar standard if you have a smart phone (like a Blackberry) that automatically connects with your Microsoft Exchange Calendar; even if you don't realize it.  This is the best kind of standard for users because you don't need to do anything, it just simply works.

But John Udell realized that it could and should do more.  As originally developed iCalendar was limited in the usual scope of implementation. An analogy might be "texting" between cell phones before Twitter.  Texting basically is one to one communications while Twitter allows the message to be sent to anyone who subscribes to the feed.  And one other fact, many of the commercial Court Case Management Systems vendors already have provided connections/extensions from the court calendar to Microsoft Exchange and/or to the iPhone/Blackberry using the iCalendar standard.

So with the "elmcity project" Mr. Udell has created an ability for the shared calendar to be fed the information from many sources and in turn, send that calendar schedule to those who subscribe.  The elmcity service is an example of what Rohit Khare memorably called syndication-oriented  architecture.  And while "elmcity" doesn't replace the court's CMS calendar, it provides a concept for a web service that extends and facilitates calendaring information sharing via the web.  And in another article Mr. Udell explains how one can manage their private and public calendars together. Again, doesn't this sounds a lot like what courts do every day?

http://blog.jonudell.net/2010/05/19/how-to-manage-private-and-public-calendars-together/

He has published an extensive FAQ about the elmcity project at:

http://blog.jonudell.net/elmcity-project-faq/

And as mentioned above, to see some elmcity calendars that have already been created go to:

http://elmcity.cloudapp.net/

Therefore in summary, there is a standard, iCalendar that allows for scheduling information to be created and shared.  The elmcity project provides for subscription and syndication of that information to those who choose to receive it.

Much more discussion to come?
----
Endnotes:

1) Retrieved from: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/9346.html in 2009 from an Associated Press article published on January 17, 2005 titled: Richardson pledges more judgeships, more funding for prosecutors at DWI summit.


2) We here at the NCSC are long time admirers of the Berkman Center staff having hosted two keynote speakers at Court Technology Conferences, Prof. Jonathan Zittrain in 1999 and Prof. Charles Ogletree in 2001.

Maine: One sentence bill directs judicial branch to upgrade its computer system

Typically legislation related to a state judiciary's computer system(s) are parts of budget bills or sections of other non-appropriations bills related to the judiciary. Maine's HB 644 of 2011, however, may go on record as the single shortest and most direct piece of legislation on the matter ever.

Below is the sum total of the bill (formatting in original):

Resolve, To Streamline the Judicial Process in Maine's Courts

Sec. 1. Judicial Department to upgrade its computer system. Resolved: That the Judicial Department shall design and implement a plan to upgrade its computer system to ensure access by Maine citizens and attorneys to electronic filing and scheduling online.

The bill's summary is almost as long as the bill itself:

This resolve directs the Judicial Department to design and implement a plan to upgrade its computer system to ensure access by Maine citizens and attorneys to electronic filing and scheduling online.

The bill has yet to be assigned to a committee, but presumably it would be sent to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. Interesting note: Maine is one of three states (Connecticut and Massachusetts are the others) that rely primarily on joint judiciary committees.

Cross-posted to Gavel to Gavel.

Colorado: Bill would require *private* companies that maintain criminal court records purge their data when court orders records sealed

It is somewhat of a truism that nothing is ever truly lost or forgotten on the internet. Colorado's HB 1203 of 2011, as passed by the state's House on February 23, looks to put the genie somewhat back in the bottle.

Under CRS 24-72-308, if a Colorado State court orders a criminal record sealed, "each custodian of the records" must seal the record. But "custodian" is limited to "the official custodian or any authorized person having personal custody and control of the criminal justice records in question." Private companies are therefore not included.

HB 1203 keeps the existing definition of "custodian" but defines a "private custodian" as "a private entity that has custody of the information and provides that information to others as a part of its business." These "private custodians" would also be subject to court orders requiring the sealing of criminal records. After being served with a copy of the order, the private custodian "shall remove the records that are subject to [the] order from its database."