Myth:  Counties will have to spend thousands of dollars each year on increased Internet capacity to implement Odyssey.

False.   JTAC pays for any additional Internet capacity necessary for Odyssey.  The Odyssey case management system operates over either an Internet connection or a private network connection between the county and the Indiana Office of Technology.  On average, Odyssey needs about 70 kbs of bandwidth per court.  JTAC works closely with local I.T. departments (if they exist) to ensure that Odyssey functions adequately.  These efforts are undertaken prior to the deployment of Odyssey.  Most of the courts where Odyssey has been deployed to date have not required any additions or modifications to their Internet capacity in order to run Odyssey.  In Monroe County, JTAC paid for an increase in capacity as part of the pilot roll out of Odyssey.  A number of other counties have chosen to upgrade their Internet capacity for other reasons around the same time Odyssey was implemented.

And JTAC has partnered with the Auditor of State’s office to utilize their e911 network. The e911 network is a private (i.e. non-Internet), high-availability fiber optic network that serves county 911 call centers.  In two cases, the e911 network was operating adjacent to or in close proximity to the courts.  So, instead of Odyssey running over the Internet in those counties, JTAC utilized this network at JTAC’s expense.  Today, Odyssey is in 50 courts in 18 counties, and these are the only two instances where additional costs arose.

Click here for a complete list of cost items and funding sources.

Revisions to Indiana’s Child Support Guidelines went into effect on January 1, 2010, so JTAC’s web developers worked last year with the Domestic Relations Committee to design a new child support calculator that is compliant with the new guidelines.  Since the new calculator went online the afternoon of December 31, the site has been visited over 17,000 times and nearly 1,800 calculations have been saved.  Presumably, the community of judges and attorneys in the state who have long used Indiana’s online and downloadable child support calculators made up a good portion of those visitors. 

The new calculator is designed specifically for parents and pro se litigants, with instructions and help information to guide them along the way.  The new calculator has some technical advantages over the previous version.  First, it’s cross-browser compatible, which means the growing number of Mac owners will have no trouble using the calculator in Safari or Firefox.  The calculator is not, however, compatible with Internet Explorer (IE) version 6.0 or older.  IE6 was released in 2001 and simply cannot support the technology the new calculator is based on.  Second, the save feature no longer relies on “cookies,” which present a host of challenges, such as connecting the saved file to your local machine instead of saving the calculation on the web server.  This meant that people using one computer could not save a calculation and retrieve it from another computer at a later date.  The calculator’s new save feature provides the user with a transaction ID # that is added to the forms.

The save feature is meant to allow a user to return and edit information or reprint forms at a later date, but there are other potential uses for it.  For example, a husband and wife seeking a divorce could cooperatively work on the same calculation and pass the transaction number by email.  Or a litigant can start the calculation and send the transaction number to his attorney for completion. A judge could enter the transaction number at the bottom of forms filed by a pro se litigant and make necessary changes to the calculation without having to re-enter all the data.

Judges and attorneys who lament the loss of the shorter online practitioners calculator and the downloadable calculator should rest assured that JTAC web developers are working on new versions for each of the other two calculators.  Lindsey Borschel, JTAC’s Web Coordinator, and Daryl Stites, Web Application Developer, are the primary staff people working on the project.  If you have problems using the calculator or suggestions on how to improve it, please email Lindsey at webmaster@jtac.in.gov.

In the last weeks of 2009, two JTAC teams worked closely with Huntington County and Blackford County users to configure the system and train users. 

At the close of business on New Year’s Eve, Huntington County judges and Clerk shut down their old computer system for the last time.  The JTAC data conversion team worked through New Year’s Eve night to move their data into Odyssey, and work continued through that weekend to review the data.  On Monday, January 4, Huntington County started the New Year using Odyssey.  Congratulations to Judges Thomas Hakes and Jeffrey Heffelfinger and Clerk Stoffel!

Congratulations are also in order for Blackford County Judges John Forcum and Dean Young , and Clerk Coons who also joined the Odyssey family on January 4th! 

Court data for Huntington and Blackford Counties is scheduled to appear on Public Access at mycase.in.gov beginning January 18. Thanks to everyone who made the extra effort during the holiday season to bring two more counties onto Odyssey!

This past fall employees of Fayette County’s CASA/Victim Assistance program received training on the Public Access application for the Protection Order Registry, which allows domestic violence advocates working with victims to complete necessary forms for a petition for a protection order online. Getting the data processing completed quickly is important – but their antiquated computer equipment with its poor screen resolution and processors that were slowing down or coming to a standstill altogether, made accomplishing this work a major challenge.

Help arrived last week when they received a very welcomed shipment of 5 new computers from JTAC to replace their outdated computer hardware. Michelle Monique Richardson, the Deputy Director of the CASA/Victim Assistance Division, said: “It was like receiving our Christmas early. We felt like small children on Christmas morning. We clapped our hands and giggled with excitement. News traveled fast of our delivery of 5 brand new Dell computers and our Circuit Court Judge was in our office curious to see our special delivery. The Judge was grateful for JTAC doing such a wonderful thing for our office. Once again, thank you so much.” The computer hardware purchase was made possible from federal Byrne JAG grant funding generously provided from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

On December 8, JTAC made its final 2009 presentation to the monthly stakeholders meeting held at our office in Indianapolis. The presentation highlights the milestones in court technology that have been achieved this year, including the continuing implementation of the Odyssey case management system in the counties as well as enhancements to the software application, and advances related to JTAC’s many other technology projects.

View presentation slides

Once again, JTAC is using technology to provide Indiana judges with the necessary tools so that they can comply with laws that ensure the timely determination of a person’s eligibility to possess firearms.  Firearm laws have been enacted to improve our national security and the public safety of citizens throughout the country. JTAC’s Mental Health Adjudication software will send critical information from the courts, through the Indiana Data Communication System (IDACS) maintained by the Indiana State Police, and on to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC).  This information is then available to all states that are seeking prior clearance of individuals who desire to possess or purchase a handgun.

On November 13, 2009, JTAC sent notices to all judges and clerks that they could begin to input mental health adjudication data into a new INcite (Indiana Court Information Technology Extranet) software application.

Public Law 110-2009 was passed by the Indiana General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels on May 15, 2009. The highlights of this law requires the division of state court administration to establish and administer an electronic system for:

(1) receiving information that relates to certain individuals who may be prohibited from possessing a firearm; and

(2) transmitting this information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for inclusion in the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The law also provides that, if a court makes adjudication or a finding concerning a person’s mental health that may disqualify the person from possessing a firearm, the court shall transmit certain information concerning the finding or adjudication to the division of state court administration for transmittal to NICS. The law also establishes a procedure by which a person who has been released from commitment or who has completed treatment may have the person’s disqualification to possess a firearm removed.

This law is a direct result of the Virginia Tech incident and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007.   Former Fort Wayne mayor Paul Helmke is the current President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and has encouraged Indiana to take the necessary steps to come into compliance with federal law.

The initiative is being funded by a grant from the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) through the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.  In addition to the Division of State Court Administration and ICJI, the Indiana State Police, Prosecuting Attorneys Council, Homeland Security, FSSA’s Division of Mental Health, Indiana Judicial Center, and Gov. Mitch Daniels worked together to accomplish this initiative.

JTAC’s conversion team will be pushing legacy data into Odyssey for the Carmel City Court this weekend.  Access to Odyssey will be interrupted temporarily while the data conversion scripts run.  This does affect Odyssey Public Access.

Carmel City will be live on Odyssey Monday morning, November 23^rd .  Judge Poindexter anticipates that the court records will be available on Odyssey Public Access beginning January 4^th, 2010!

In compliance with Public Law 130-2009, JTAC has published the E-ticket Protocol. Although no funding was provided by the legislature for this project, JTAC has used existing resources to develop a standard protocol for other case management systems (court or prosecutor) to interface with the JTAC Electronic Citation and Warning System (eCWS).

Work on the E-ticket Protocol has been completed. In addition to filing over 70,000 tickets into Odyssey, the Supreme Court’s statewide case management system, JTAC has worked with vendors and courts to develop an interface to the eCWS Central Repository – the data repository that stores all electronic tickets and warnings written using eCWS software.

In September, 2009, JTAC completed the interface to CourtView (case management system used in Lake County) and Keystone (case management system used in Pendleton Town Court) and over 10,000 tickets have been electronically filed into these case management systems. Since Keystone is used by the many of City and Town Courts in Indiana, it is our understanding that this e-filing functionality is now being deployed to the rest of the courts using the Keystone system.

JTAC anticipates that other counties using CourtView including Boone, Tippecanoe, and Vanderburgh Counties, will be e-filing tickets early next year.

We will, of course, comply with the legislation’s stipulation that any E-ticket interface in each county be at “the option of the prosecuting attorney.”

The prototype to interface with the eCWS Central Repository is available at: courts.IN.gov/jtac/specs.

JTAC’s award-winning electronic citation and warning system has hit another milestone: 5,000 active users.

What this means is that 5,000 law enforcement officers are using eCWS and are saving thousands of minutes and dollars every day. Of the 5,000 active users, about 1,600 are with state agencies like the Indiana State Police, Indiana State Excise Police and Indiana Gaming Commission. The remaining 3,400 users are spread throughout the state in agencies as large as the Allen County Sheriff’s Department and as small as the Ossian Police Department in rural Wells County.

JTAC has been able to provide the e-ticket software and training free of charge.  In addition,  JTAC and the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute have provided scanners and printers to law enforcement agencies to use in conjunction with the e-ticket application. All of this has been accomplished through federal grant funding acquired by both JTAC and the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

Another milestone with the eCWS application:   JTAC was contacted by 4 Lake County Courts requesting an interface with their current record management system (Courtview), and by the Pendleton Town Court and Fremont Town Court that use Keystone as their record management system requesting an interface to eCWS.  JTAC and these courts have completed these interfaces.  The interface allows JTAC to electronically file e-ticket infraction cases to these courts.  To date, JTAC has electronically filed over 7,700 infraction cases to the Lake County Courts, over 1,800 to the Fremont Town Court and over 1,700 to the Pendleton Town Court.

JTAC is deploying a new Odyssey release this Friday.  This release will include several long-awaited features but the most significant is the Supervision Product Center.  JTAC has been working closely with Tyler Technologies to build this new Center from the ground up.  In addition to several county probation officers and administrative staff and staff from the Indiana Judicial Center,  JTAC’s Mark Harvey and Consultant Mark Rodriguez of Paperless Business Solutions have participated in the design and testing of Odyssey Supervision.  Following the release on Friday, JTAC will continue to test the functionality and configure the application in our Production environment before we deploy it to our initial pilot counties.