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Morgan Computer Services, Inc.
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State of Delaware, Judicial Information Center
Project: Automated Sentencing Order Program (ASOP)
Business Issues: The Courts of Delaware urgently needed to improve accuracy, to expedite the dissemination of results related to court decisions and to increase productivity. The criminal justice sentencing structures in Delaware are known to be some of the most intricate in the nation, so the complexity of the proposed solution was a concern - it could not be simply one application. An integrated combination of over eighteen (18) different applications was required. Because of this, there were serious concerns over whether the project was possible.
Requirements: Several needs
directed the requirements for this combination application: primarily, the complexity of Delaware law, secondly, established courtroom procedures and lastly, the specific data needed to process a particular case. The application had to access and process large volumes of existing data stored in an Adabase database and it had to run in a fast, efficient manner. Performance was critical, since the application would have to run on the statewide network and in all of the courts in each county. This meant data had to be delivered through nine (9) levels of interface within ten (10) seconds, with results being processed in real-time. Once a Sentence Order was entered, the data needed to be filed in all appropriate databases (including the FBI's) within thirty (30) minutes.
The Morgan Solution: Morgan designed, developed and supported statewide implementation of the Automated Sentence Order Program (ASOP). Meeting the performance specifications was a major challenge, since the State's Adabase databases contain a complete record of all historical and current case histories. The histories provide enormous amounts of data that would need to be searched for the case-specific information required. Since there was no interface available that could provide needed performance, MORGAN invented one. MORGAN customized a client/server model that was then optimized to meet the courts' requirements. In real world testing, our interface exceeded the performance goals by a substantial margin. Where a 10-second access time was required, we achieved average access times of 2.5 seconds. Because the amount of data associated with each case was overwhelming, MORGAN developed a user-friendly interface that allowed quick and easy access, and navigation within the data, all without confusing the user. MORGAN delivered ASOP as one integrated application that supported the courts' needs for pretrial preparation, sentence determination, sentence order posting and notifications required by court operations in the State of Delaware.
Benefits: The Superior Court of Delaware is now using technology to streamline criminal justice, and the results are impressive. Updated criminal records are now available at the time of sentencing. Judges can see accurate, up-to-date views of defendants' criminal history at the time of decision-making. Court Clerks are electronically filing and transferring sentence orders within minutes of the Judge's pronouncement, and defendants receive a copy before they depart the courtroom. Efficiency has increased, and training requirements have been reduced. Mistakes - which had previously plagued the system - are decreasing and prison authorities now receive orders within minutes of a Judge's action. Defendants with additional arrest warrants are identified and captured "on-the-spot." Justice in Delaware is more evenhanded, more effective, and more efficient.
Technologies: Courtroom Automation, Client/Server Architecture, Mainframe Access, LAN/WAN
Tools: Visual Basic, Access 97, Active X, EXE & DLL Components, Sheridan Tools, NT 4.0, MS-Windows
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