3 - Imaging and Viewing of Court Documents

 
Request Status Summary
Request Status Closed
Status Comment 12/08/2020 Closed as this request was fulfilled by two other ITG Requests ITG #002 - Superior Court – Case Management System, & ITG #102 - Courts of Limited Jurisdiction – Case Management System.
Request Detail
Requestor Name:
   Ammons, Kevin
Origination Date:
   07/22/2010
    
Recommended Endorser:
   Superior Court Judges' Association
Request Type: Change or Enhancement
Which Systems are affected? Judicial Information System (JIS)
Superior Court Management Information System (SCOMIS)
Data Warehouse
Judicial Receipting System (JRS)
Business Area: Other
Communities Impacted: Superior Court Judges
County Clerks
Superior Court Administrators
CLJ Judges
CLJ Managers
Family and Juvenile Law Judges
Juvenile Court Administrators
Impact if not Resolved: High
Impact Description:
In order to see the text of key documents from other jurisdictions, court personnel must call thhe other jurisdiction and have the text of the documents read over the phone. This could be eliminated if images were available of the documents in the current system.
What is the Business Problem or Opportunity
***Important Note*** This request was originally submitted as part of a pilot of the IT Governance process. The processing of this request took place before the IT Governance Portal was developed. As such, the information related to this request is being included in the portal for completeness. The history entries in this record are not indicative of either the actual processing dates or the bodies that performed the various steps of the governance process. ***The original request follows*** The Washington Legislature has mandated that courts consider a variety of relevant court information to improve judicial decision-making and outcomes in areas such as domestic violence protection orders, release decisions, and family courts. Of the 39 Washington counties, 38 have installed imaging systems and scanned significant portions of their court records. Analysis should address: - Data exchange committee responsibilities and efforts-to-date - Strategies to ensure scope is clearly defined and maintained - Impacts on Superior Court systems - Impacts on other agency data systems - Ongoing maintenance of data interfaces - Balancing functionality, risks and costs. This request went to the JISC. The JISC decided the request was far too broad and returned the request to the SCJA in order to narrow the request to reflect business priorities. ***On June 19th, the SCJA clarified their business goals and priorities. The following text is extracted from an email and summarizes the SCJA's answers to several questions and their priorities on what documents should be included in this request.*** The proposed problem statement is approved to read: Superior Court judges have a need to see images of certain documents from other courts to verify information or to find details not recorded in SCOMIS or JIS. Currently, court staff must call the clerks of other courts and have specifics of the documents read to them. In order to properly analyze the request, AOC also requests answers to the following open questions. The answers by the SCJA to the questions are: 1. What types of documents, and what information in those documents, are most essential to meet the judge’s business need? a. Court Orders: Including DV protective orders, anti-harassment orders, Judgment and Sentence and underlying guilty pleas, Information and probable cause statements b. Clerk's minutes entries c. Standard decree of dissolution 2. At what point or points do documents need to be viewed? (E.g. On the bench? Before the case is heard? In chambers?) a. All of the above 3. Does any other court staff need to view to the images? If so, who? a. Judge’s Law Clerk or Judicial Assistant, Bailiff, Coordinator, or similar personnel 4. Does every court need to see documents from every other jurisdiction and/or court-level? a. All trial courts 5. What is the impact if some jurisdictions do not have images that go as far back as other jurisdictions? (E.g. County A has scanned documents back to 2007 whereas County B has scanned documents back to 1983.) a. Okay as long as record is clear (in other words if no record is shown, is it because none exists or because the county didn’t scan prior to that date) 6. The original request presented by the SCJA indicated that judges need to have view access of documents from other agencies, including jails. If this is a core business need, we also need questions 1-5 answered for each separate agency. In the minutes above, it says “permit view access to data”, should you say this, or assume they meant images of documents? a. Not a core need, but would be nice. Would like to eventually get access to data/documents from other states. The Judges Association would like to have access to the actual documents images. 7. What are the priorities for the documents, jurisdictions, and agencies? a. DV protective orders b. Anti-harassment orders c. DUI conviction Which means that we have to have access to other jurisdictions and trial court levels – district and municipal courts. Agencies are the least priority.
Expected Benefit:
If court staff were able to access images of key documents, decision-making would be greatly expedited.
Any Additional Information:
This request was initiated on February 26, 2010 by the SCJA. It was returned to the SCJA by the JISC to narrow the broad scope into a more specific request.
Endorsement Detail
Endorsing Committee
   Superior Court Judges' Association
Endorser Name:
   Dalton, Jeanette M
Origination Date:
   08/05/2010
Endorsing Action: Endorsed
Endorser’s Explanation and Comments

This is verbatim what our sub user group determined as answers to the questions presented.
AOC Analysis Detail
Analysis Date: 09/09/2010
Request Rationale
Aligns with JIS Business Priorities, IT Strategies & Plans: Yes
Aligns with applicable policies and with ISD Standards: Yes
Breadth of Solution Benefit: Wide
Cost Estimates
Cost Benefit Analysis Complete? No
Cost to Implement? Dependant upon vendors
Feasibility Study needed? Yes
Court Level User Group
Multi-level CLUG
Approving Authority Administrator
Request Summary:

The solution should provide images of the following documents:

1. Domestic violence protection orders

2. Anti-harassment orders

3. Judgment and sentence orders and underlying guilty pleas

4. Charging Information

5. Probable Cause Statements

6. Clerk's minutes

7. Standard decrees of dissolution

Business Impacts:

The solution shall allow personnel to view documents from all trial courts and not just their own court.

The solution shall provide clear information on whether or not a specific document is available as an image.

Summary of Proposed Solution

The solution that the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) proposes to provide accessibility to document images across courts and jurisdictions is for individual courts to retain their own document images and AOC to serve as an intermediary or “hub” between courts wishing to see document images of other courts.

Proposed Solution

AOC would accomplish this by enhancing JABS to include a list of links to document images available for a case. When a user clicks on a document link, JABS would retrieve the document image from the court that holds the document and display it to the user. Because AOC would be acting as an intermediary for viewing document images rather hosting duplicate copies of document images at AOC, this solution addresses concerns over the accuracy, currency and availability of document images as they would continue to reside with the local court.

This project carries several risks that could impact the successful completion of the project. The risks include: multiple vendors are known to provide imaging services to Washington courts and the vendors may be unwilling to accommodate the enhancements on their end necessary to allow this solution to succeed. There may be work that has to be completed by court staff locally in order to successfully implement this project. Additionally the capability of viewing and sharing document images across courts is generally a feature available in the leading Case Management software suites.

Additional Systems Affected
Judicial Access Browser System (JABS)
Communities Impacted
Superior Court Judges
County Clerks
Superior Court Administrators
CLJ Judges
CLJ Managers
Family and Juvenile Law Judges
Juvenile Court Administrators
Confirmation of Endorsing Action Detail
Endorsing Committee
   Superior Court Judges' Association
Endorser Name:
   Dalton, Jeanette M
Origination Date:
   11/17/2010
Endorsing Action: Endorsed
Court Level User Group Decision Detail
CLUG Multi-level CLUG
Chair of Group Rich Johnson
Date of Decision 12/07/2011
Decision
Decision to Recommend for Approval Forwarded to the approving authority without recommendation
Priority Processing Status Not Prioritized
Scoring Detail
In making their decision, detailed score values were not provided by Multi-level CLUG.
Pros & Cons (if vote is not unanimous)

Pros and Cons were submitted for this vote. Please see attachment document.

MCLUG MAJORITY OPINION, ITG-003, Imaging and Viewing of Court Documents
The motion was to forward the MCLUG's scoring and approval of the request to the JISC.
Substantive Reasons to Move the Request Forward to the JISC for Approval:
1.) Providing cross jurisdiction access to imaged court documents is essential to enable the Superior Courts to meet the legislative mandate of RCW 28.09.182 to determine the existence of any information and court proceedings relevant to the placement of children in family law proceedings.
2.) All trial courts are mandated by RCW 26.50.160 to prevent the issuance of competing protection orders in different courts. JIS is mandated by this statute to provide information on the parties to all protection orders, a criminal history of the parties and other relevant information necessary to assist court in issuing orders . Judges believe that viewing the actual court documents requested is relevant information necessary to fulfilling their responsibilities under Chapter 26.50.RCW.
3.) Lack of access to the actual court documents from other jurisdictions is impeding the ability of judges to make informed decisions on placement of children and issuance of protective orders.
4.) AOC has proposed an appropriate cost effective solution to accomplish this request as an upgrade to JABS by providing a hub to access imaged documents from the various jurisdictions.


N.F. Jackson, Whatcom County Court Administrator
MCLUG MINORITY OPINION, ITG-003, Imaging and Viewing of Court Documents
The motion was to forward the MCLUG's scoring and approval of the request to the JISC.
While I had earlier declined to vote for a motion to table the request without discussing the request, I voted against forwarding the request as-is.
Procedural Reasons:
My reason for voting against forwarding the request was because I believed and still believe that there are a number of unknown matters relevant to the MCLUG's assessment of the request. I think it the job of a CLUG to make informed and substantially complete recommendations. I think that a CLUG is abdicating its duty if it passes the buck, by forwarding incomplete recommendations.
There was a perception that once the request hit the MCLUG's table it had to be acted upon immediately. I disagree with that perception and feel instead that the job of a CLUG, if it discerns gaps or alternatives, is to delay a recommendation in order to seek additional assessment or input in order to make its best recommendation.
Substantive Reasons:
Specifically, at first there were unidentified concerns expressed by the Clerks. Later there was an oral report of a survey of imaging vendors reciting this or that. I am not comfortable performing my MCLUG duties based on hearsay. It was said that not only vendor costs might be incurred, but that Clerk costs might be incurred.
I doubt the efficacy of untoward vendor costs, because our court was part of an AOC demo five or six years ago that accomplished exactly the same display of documents as described in the request, without any consultation with our vendor, merely by the county granting online access to the AOC to search for documents images. However, if an imaging county does not have online access, this could involve local costs.
Likewise I doubt the cost or burden on Clerks. The Clerk labor is in docketing, scanning and linking the docket and the images. The access to the thus docket/scanned/linked images is hands-free on the Clerk's part.
BUT, these questions must be asked and answered before we can or should forward an informed recommendation.


Pat Swartos, Mason County Clerk
MCLUG MINORITY OPINION, ITG-003, Imaging and Viewing of Court Documents
The motion was to forward the MCLUG's scoring and approval of the request to the JISC.
Cons to approving the request:
1) The WSACC need more information & discussion on this project in order for it to go forward.
2) More information is needed from all the vendors on how the process will work with each Imaging System.
3) The estimated cost of this is low. The cost will be considerably higher.
4) There will be costs to the County offices (Clerks & IS department).
5) Concern that sharing of images will expand beyond Judges and staff. Anyone or agency beyond that should not be able to provide links to the public to access these records without paying a subscription. They should not be allowed to make copies with out this.
6) Most of the Clerks now provide access to their local Judges to view the document images.
7) The majority of CLJ courts do not have imaging, and their Domestic Violence and Anti-Harassment Orders will not be available to view with this project. State-Wide Protection Order are processed in both court levels.
Additional Information from Siri Woods, Chelan County Clerk
This request is more complex than it appears. The way this could logically be done is for clerks to upload orders that are in JABS and for AOC to convert them to one format and attach them to the name of the document in JABS.
Counties would have to have WEB servers on their imaging systems and most do not and every one would require a seat so it would be necessary for AOC to at least purchase one seat on each WEB SERVER. There be a big question about confidential documents being accessible. I don't think clerks would allow that except on specific request. That is how I do it now on my system. I allow attorneys or the press or whomever purchases a seat on my system to subscribe. Access is only to public documents. If a confidential document is required, the attorney of record or counsel who represent the party who is entitled to access, will be send the document by staff. There is no right to access from other counties, they too would have to purchase a subscription.
Again, this could only be done by the few counties who have public access currently or who are able and willing to purchased web servers to give access to others outside of their county.
That is why I think the upload would be a better way to go. Counties currently upload J&Ss and Support orders all the time and the State offices of Support Enforcement and Corrections make them available to their people.
Implementation Detail  – Superseded
Analysis Date: 08/09/2011
Implementation Stage Authorized
Prioritization Option: Non-Prioritized
Comments:

This request was authorized by Jeff Hall on August 9th, 2011.
Implementation Detail  – Superseded
Analysis Date: 05/01/2013
Implementation Stage Authorized
Prioritization Option: Non-Prioritized
Comments:

Added more documentation to the request.
Implementation Detail
Analysis Date: 09/09/2019
Implementation Stage In Progress
Prioritization Option: Non-Prioritized
 

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