Friday, May 28, 2021

This and That in Court Tech – May 2021

 

We have been saving a lot (and I mean “a lot) of interesting items to share in recent weeks.  We have news about court data analytics in California, an academic paper questioning the use of arrest data in policy development, a new justice index ranking report for USA courts, a report on Fines and Fees policies, the application of microeconomics for policy development, the NIEM JSON Specification, Version 5.0 release candidate 2, Ohio Court News on sealed records, England and Wales reports on the results of their divorce online system, applying the PDF A-4 standard for permanent digital records, and an excellent Tiny Chat.



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 The Florida Virtual Courtroom Directory Opens Court Proceedings to All

Via press release:  In April 2021, the Florida Supreme Court launched the Virtual Courtroom Directory, a website from which viewers can link to and watch virtual hearings and court livestreams of trials and oral arguments throughout the state.

The directory website is: https://courtrooms.flcourts.org/

The idea for this directory germinated in May 2020, when Chief Justice Canady read about three states that had successfully developed live court event websites—Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey.  Immediately, he directed the Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA) to determine whether Florida could construct something similar.  Reaching out to the court technology officers of those states, Mr. Roosevelt Sawyer, the state courts technology officer under OSCA, learned about how those websites were built, how they are updated, how long it took, and how much it cost to develop these systems, and which videoconferencing platforms they use.  Armed with this information, along with other tips and “lessons learned” that these states generously shared, Mr. Sawyer was given approval to proceed.  In under a year—with the indispensable support of the supreme court’s deputy director of public information, Ms Tricia Knox, who took the lead in this effort; the vendor, who developed the website; and the Florida court technology officers of the four circuits that participated in the pilot project (the Second, Eleventh, Fourteenth, and Seventeenth)—he was able to bring the chief justice’s vision to fruition.

 

California Judicial Council Approves Data Analytics Strategy on Use of Branch Data and Information

From a press release on May 21, 2021.

“A court innovations grant awarded to the Orange County Superior Court for its data project was the genesis for the branch wide vision on data analytics. “Trial courts are the incubators of change,” said Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye. “Orange County received a grant and turned it into something that changes the branch and sets an example, nationally."

Council members heard how the past year has accelerated the ongoing need for data due to the pandemic’s effects on court operations and services, such as the:

  • Number of courts holding remote proceedings and in which case types
  • Number of litigants accessing self-help centers (in-person and remotely)
  • Number of filings and dispositions

There is much more detail available in the article.

 

On the Validity of Arrest as a Proxy for Offense: Race and the Likelihood of Arrest for Violent Crimes

A research report out of Carnegie-Mellon University (PDF) was released that studied “(t)he risk of re-offense is considered in decision-making at many stages of the criminal justice system, from pre-trial, to sentencing, to parole. To aid decision-makers in their assessments, institutions increasingly rely on algorithmic risk assessment instruments (RAIs). These tools assess the likelihood that an individual will be arrested for a new criminal offense within some time window following their release. However, since not all crimes result in arrest, RAIs do not directly assess the risk of re-offense. Furthermore, disparities in the likelihood of arrest can potentially lead to biases in the resulting risk scores. Several recent validations of RAIs have therefore focused on arrests for violent offenses, which are viewed as being more accurate reflections of offending behavior. In this paper, we investigate biases in violent arrest data by analyzing racial disparities in the likelihood of arrest for White and Black violent offenders.”

Editor’s note: congratulation to the authors on examining this statistical approach.  In my experience and opinion, the arrest data tells a very small part of the story.  What the prosecutor, courts, and subsequent corrective processes can be much more useful.


The National Center for Access to Justice Index 2021 Released

https://ncaj.org/state-rankings/2021/justice-index

They write: “The Justice Index is a snapshot of the degree to which each US state has adopted best practices for ensuring access to justice for all people. NCAJ has identified policies in four key areas-- attorney access, support for self-represented litigants, language access and disability access-- that we believe every state should have in place to ensure meaningful access to justice for everyone. We then examine the degree to which every state has actually adopted those policies.

Based on those results, we assign every state a score. Performance is measured on a scale of 0 to 100. See our methodology discussion for more details on how this scoring works and on how we do the work.

The maps and other data below are based on a composite score that shows how states perform across all of these categories. You can also see how each state performs under each distinct policy area by using the menus above or below. On those pages, you can also find details about the specific policies we are looking for.

In 2021, we have expanded our inquiry to include a new policy area-- fines and fees. State scores on fines and fees are not factored into the Justice Index composite score. That is because the fines and fees arena is in some ways distinct from the other justice index categories-- it is less about improving access, and more about rooting abuse and oppression out from the justice system."

The specific ranking for Fines and Fees is available separately at: https://ncaj.org/state-rankings/2020/fines-and-fees

 

Microsoft Podcast: Using microeconomics to solve mass incarceration featuring Hunt Allcott and Evan Rose

I regularly listen to the Microsoft Research Podcast.  I was delighted to recently find one on some work that their researchers have explored mass incarceration issues.

The podcast summary states:

“In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society.

In this episode, Dr. Hunt Allcott, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, talks with Dr. Evan Rose, Postdoctoral Researcher, whom Allcott describes as “one of the most engaging and talented researchers in applied microeconomics today.” They’ll discuss how Rose’s experience teaching adult learners at San Quentin State Prison has resonated throughout his research, and they’ll delve into what his and others’ work is uncovering about the criminal justice system today, including the effects of incarceration and parole, impacts of ban-the-box hiring practices, and racial disparities and discrimination.”

 

Announcing NIEM JSON Specification Version 5.0 release candidate 2 Available for Public Comment

NIEM continues to evolve by expanding support for JSON in addition to XML.  The following is their most recent announcement:

The NIEM JSON Specification, Version 5.0 release candidate 2 (RC2) is available for public comment and review through Thursday, May 13. Please visit the NIEM Specifications page to view the RC2 specification and to provide feedback.

This is the final stage before we officially publish the NIEM JSON Specification version 5.0. At this point in the release cycle, we are working to get to a stable draft and are looking to address errors and bugs only.


How Clean Are ‘Clean Slates’?

A May 2021 Ohio Court News article by Kathleen Maloney delves into the subject of court record sealing/expungement and the challenges of commercial data services. 

http://www.courtnewsohio.gov/inDepth/2021/May/default.asp#.YK5lIqhKhPb

They summarize that “(e)ligible people have the opportunity under state law to have certain case records sealed or expunged. But challenges arise – sometimes repeatedly – when commercial companies release sealed or expunged criminal histories in background checks, often to potential employers and landlords.

The article does a very good job of framing and summarizing the issues.

 

England and Wales Divorce Online:

A case study about how England and Wales courts “put users at the heart of a process that provides benefits to separating couples with a simple, quick, web-based application.”

The impact of the online system was said that:

“Currently, 70% of all new divorce applications in England & Wales are being submitted online. It takes half the time to fill in the old paper forms. As a result, we return less than 1% of online applications because of user error, compared to 40% in the old system.

 Since 2018, more than 80,000 applications have been received with more than 8 out of 10 users saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with the service (an 87% satisfaction rate).

Strong reciprocal engagement with service users and other stakeholders has been integral to the success of this project.

The online divorce [test] has been a triumphant success and shows, to my mind conclusively, that this is – must be – the way of the future.”

Congratulations

 

Digitizing permanent records: the case for PDF/A-4

An article “derived from the PDF Association's comment on a proposed rulemaking from NARA entitled “Federal Records Management: Digitizing Permanent Records and Reviewing Records Schedules” was posted.

Our comment focuses on the proposed rulemaking's exclusion of ISO 19005-4 (PDF/A-4) as an acceptable digital document format for digitizing permanent records.

The PDF Association has recommended to NARA that the proposed regulation be modified to include ISO 19005-4:2020 (PDF/A-4) in the set of acceptable archival formats.”

 

Tiny Chat talks with a Court User

The always excellent NCSC Tiny Chats explore a lot of access to justice topics from an operational, procedural, and sometimes even academic viewpoint. This chat is different. Danielle and Zach talk with Robyn about what it was like for her to try and get divorced from her abusive spouse, how it felt asking for a fee waiver, and what she wishes courts understood about what it is like for someone to try and use the system on their own. Access to justice is about people.

Excellent.


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