Technology in the Courts - Essay Example

The same year, Video Conferencing System was assessed in the South Dakota Unified Judicial System and also the Existing Case Processing Systems was analyzed for bringing into being the Unified Case Management System in the Puerto Rico Courts. In 2005, one major leap was the implementation of the Electronic Document Management System for the Iowa Judicial Branch. The year 2006 saw a lot of activity in terms of reassessment of court needs. The Case Management Systems were assessed in several courts including the Montgomery County, Ohio and Washington Administrative Office of the Courts.

The Chatham County, Georgia made a review of its Information Technology needs. The Travis County, Texas reviewed its Assess Document Management System. In the year 2007 also there was a lot of hectic activity with regards to review and implementation of technology in courts. Firstly, there was the review of Court technology in the Appellate Courts for the Indiana Supreme Court. There was also the assessment of the effect of new Automation on Guardianship Cases in the Probate Division of the eleventh Judicial Circuit, Florida 2007.

Alongside, information technology security was also planned for these courts. In the year 2008, the Automated Management System came to be developed in the Massachusetts Courts. Another major event during 2008 was the feasibility study for the Electronic Warrant Process for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the analysis of the Justice Information Exchange Model for the Juvenile Docket for the State of Vermont Judiciary. In the same year, the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands updated its e-filing technology software.

Technology and Business Reviews of the case management system for Palm Beach County, Florida and Technology system for Eugene, Oregon Municipal Court were also conducted in 2008. Let us now briefly try to understand all the different kinds of technology that are being implemented in courtrooms nowadays. “A basic trial technology kit includes a laptop(w/Pentium mobile chip, 2 Ghz processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, XP Professional & DVD player/burner); Microsoft PowerPoint; a computer light projector(w/ 2000+lumens) & screen; a visual presenter/document camera; a multi-plug power adapter with extension cord; and 3 “key” foam core board blow-ups.

Trial presentation software can also be made use of like Sancion or Trial Director. And the ones who are big-time into the use of technology can even consider using the Blackberry or other text messaging handheld device.” (Use of Technology in the Courtroom) But then there are factors to be borne in mind when using technology in courtrooms particularly with respect to its flexibility of usage and redundancy. In courtrooms, the focus is on the work to be done. A single activity may be composed of sub-activities that are dependent on each other.

How they interact and what result they will throw up can vary depending on the inputs. What case management software does is that it serializes the outputs of the sub activities so that the user is presented with the final output in quick time. Furthermore, users can add new tasks, data objects, documents and even new processes to the case while the case is being analyzed. A common feature of case management software is the electronic case folder which includes activities, data and documents for the case. A case