JIS Technology Initiatives 2008
For the last several years, the Michigan Supreme Court, in conjunction with the Technology Advisory Group (TAG), has established and prioritized significant technology projects that will enhance the business and data capabilities of Michigan’s judiciary. These projects focus on improving the state courts’ abilities to perform their core functions and enable them to share information and communicate electronically with other state agencies, such as law enforcement.
In 2008, the major projects underway include the following:
Next Generation of Trial Court Management System
Judicial Data Warehouse
Internet Payment of Traffic Tickets
Judicial Network Project
Statewide Judicial Data Warehouse
Establishing a statewide data warehouse by the end of 2008 was the second major objective of the Supreme Court’s Technology Advisory Group. Michigan’s 241 trial courts utilize over 25 different case management systems. These systems do not enable courts to share or access case information from other courts or state agencies. In 2005, the Judicial Data Warehouse (JDW) was created as a centralized repository of court records to allow sharing of information and the collection of statistical data. As of April, 2008, the JDW contains court history for 89 counties and 189 courts. It contains over 24 million court case records, and new courts are being added to the JDW every month.
The JDW extracts case data from the courts’ case management systems and places it on one common platform. Court personnel have the ability to search the JDW to find a person known to the Michigan Judicial System and all cases in which he/she is involved. This has been found to assist judges and administrators in a number of ways. In the JDW, data from the various court systems are transformed to a standard format allowing all users to understand the data without regard to a specific county or court system.
The goal in 2008 is to complete the JDW by adding the remaining courts in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, as well as the courts which use commercial systems such as Maximus and Quad-Tran. By the end of 2008, 240 courts should be loaded on the warehouse, resulting in approximately 60 million court records available for inquiry.
Executive branch agencies have expressed interest in using the JDW as a source for judicial information. Some examples of data sharing arrangements that are either contemplated or underway include:
Department of Corrections – inmate data
MSP – Office of Highway Safety – matching crash data with court disposition and death
Drug courts – determine recidivism
Attorney General – use GEO mapping for warrants
DHS – use court records to improve child safety and welfare
Internet Payment of Traffic Tickets
This project provides the potential for statewide payment of traffic tickets over the Internet. The system has the following capabilities:
- single entry point for citizens to pay traffic tickets for Michigan courts
- payment method via credit cards supported by the e-Michigan web site
- leverage Michigan.gov infrastructure and services
- disburse collected payments to the appropriate courts
- update traffic ticket payment status on local trial court computer systems
The Internet payment of traffic tickets initiative now processes transactions for the District Courts in the cities of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Eastpointe and Wyoming. The system processes on average, 1,200 transactions per month and requires the no action by court staff to update their case management system.
Judicial Network Project
This project was the first major objective of the Supreme Court’s Technology Advisory Group (TAG). The goal was to provide Michigan courts with the technology to allow them to report dispositions electronically to the State Police Criminal History Record System, thus providing law enforcement with timely criminal history from the judiciary. The majority of this project was completed in 2005 when over 95 percent of all felony dispositions were reported electronically. The focus of the project in 2006 was to convert all remaining paper-based dispositions, including misdemeanors, to electronic submissions. As of January 2008, over 95% of the state’s 152 district courts are submitting misdemeanors electronically and the remaining courts are being added continuously.
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