Henry County
The Indiana Supreme Court Division of State Court Administration (Division) in 2012 awarded Henry County a Court Reform Grant to develop an electronic record of judgments and orders system. The project had two goals: 1) develop an electronic Record of Judgments and Orders (eRJO) to eliminate thick, bound paper books; and 2) make the non-confidential RJO orders available to the public over the internet. The use of an electronic RJO is allowed by Trial Rule 77(D).
Following the award, Henry County Circuit Court Judge Mary Willis and Clerk Debra Walker partnered with the Division’s technology staff to develop software that makes available court orders, judgments and decrees over the Internet. On January 16, 2014, Chief Justice of Indiana Brent E. Dickson, on behalf of a unanimous Court, signed an order approving the request of Henry County’s clerk and judges to implement the eRJO as a pilot project. The order also authorized an Electronic System Fee structure pursuant to Administrative Rule 9 (E). After 18 months of planning, development, and testing, Clerk Walker and Judge Willis unveiled the software program to a receptive audience of lawyers, court and clerk staff, media and the public on February 14, 2014.
Clerk Walker is hopeful this application will make it more convenient for attorneys, litigants and the public to access court documents 24/7, without making an unnecessary trip to the Court House. Judge Willis said: “we are very impressed with not only the convenience of the application but also with the increased transparency it brings to the courts and their operations.”
The eRJO is one of several applications that the Division makes available to the public online. eRJO provides access to orders, judgments and decrees that the courts of Henry County have designated to be included in the Record of Judgments and Orders Book. Henry County staff scan each document and attach it to the case event in the Odyssey case management system (CMS).
A person can search for a case by case number, party name or by a date range. The application displays the chronological case summary (CCS) and a scanned document ‘icon’ is projected on this screen. There is a ‘preview’ window to view the top portion of the document prior to making a purchase. The purchase price for each document is a $1.00, regardless of the number of pages. The transaction costs are an additional $2.00 plus 2% of the total dollar amount, which cover the maintenance of the software as well as the credit card vendor’s transaction fee. This fee structure will apply to any other Odyssey county upon the successful completion of this pilot project. Clerk Walker noted that many transactions over the internet will actually be cheaper than paying the current in-person copy fee in the clerk’s office, which is $1.00 per printed page. She is pleased that this online system may save the public not only time but money as well.
Under Trial Rule 77 (K), the Supreme Court approved Henry County’s request to post documents on the Internet as a pilot project. This application can be deployed to all Odyssey courts as scanning is implemented in each county.
Franklin County
As the Henry County project was under construction, another Odyssey ‘first’ was happening in nearby Franklin County. In December, 2013, Franklin County transitioned to Odyssey from their legacy system. In addition to converting all the data from their old case management system, the Odyssey deployment team converted all of Franklin County’s scanned documents that were housed within their old legacy system. On the first Monday morning after conversion weekend, Franklin County users came to work and found that not only had all the case and financial data converted but the previously scanned documents were now in Odyssey. Franklin County continues to scan all case documents into Odyssey.
The Division is working to implement scanning for all Odyssey courts. Although Odyssey has always supported the scanning of documents, the Division first focused on deploying the CMS prior to implementing scanning on a statewide basis. With the release of additional software enhancements to Odyssey, scanning is now on the horizon. Once the scanning enhancements are piloted in Henry and Franklin Counties, the Division will develop a plan to deploy scanning to all courts using Odyssey.