If a technology solution is not presented, courts will continue using inefficient manual processes for accepting, managing, and reviewing digital exhibits.

Courts receive both physical and digital exhibits and are looking to improve the overall management of exhibits. Current exhibit management processes are largely manual and vary by jurisdiction.

Significant challenges exist around digital exhibits. The increasing volume of digital exhibits come in a variety of digital mediums that are difficult or impossible to upload into current court systems because of size, compatibility, or security concerns. Examples include: USB drives, DVDs, bodycam videos, audio/video recordings, cell phone data, and digital documents. Parties are generally required to submit such digital exhibits as physical copies. The current manual processes create challenges to manage digital evidence effectively, efficiently, and securely.

Courts require a digital exhibit management system that can efficiently collect, inventory, manage, review, and present digital evidence before, during, and after a court proceeding.

A digital exhibit management system would be able to accept, store, manage, and playback exhibits submitted in diverse digital formats. Implementation of a system would improve ease of use and convenience for court staff, judicial officers, litigants, and authorized stakeholders by making exhibits readily accessible from any device. It would present an opportunity to rethink and streamline current court workflows around exhibit management and would provide a more efficient and streamlined process for transferring case information, testimony, and exhibits back and forth between the different court levels for appeals.

Defining, selecting, and implementing a major system such as this would be a multi-year and multi-million dollar investment. For a project of this size and complexity, a feasibility study is necessary for due diligence and to gain a better understanding of associated costs and project risks. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) would begin this effort by gathering and documenting high-level business requirements from the trial and appellate courts. AOC would then solicit information from vendors to determine if systems exist in the market space to meet the requirements identified. AOC would also work closely with the courts to determine how many courts would be likely to adopt a new statewide solution. Finally, if approved by the Judicial Information System Committee (JISC), the AOC would either procure or build a solution based upon the results of this feasibility study. The sizing below represents only the costs for the feasibility study.

AOC would conduct a feasibility study to elicit and document requirements, determine the state of the market for potential solutions, determine the breadth of potential participation in a statewide system, and craft a plan to procure and implement a solution.

This ITG was ranked as Priority #7 by the JISC.