Montana justice lobbies for computer upgrades

HELENA — Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Karla Gray wants the 2005 Legislature to resurrect the state’s largest criminal database from what she calls the “Stone Age.”

The current system runs largely off paper documents. That can make it difficult for police officers, deputies and judges to share information about convictions and court proceedings and even harder for the public to access that information, Gray said.

She’s hoping the Legislature will spend $4.8 million to modernize Montana’s legal system technology. Outgoing Gov. Judy Martz included no money for an upgrade in her proposed budget, and Gov.-elect Brian Schweitzer hasn’t finalized his budget and could make no funding promises.

“We’re still squeezing,” he said of the budget process.

Montana has courthouses in all 56 counties. But none of them are linked electronically, and some still list convictions, marriages and other legal matters by hand, making their records difficult to share, court administrator Jim Oppedahl said.

The Department of Justice tries to maintain a database of all criminal convictions in the state, but is hampered by lack of technology, he said. Most of the information is sent through the mail and then typed into the database, meaning someone could be arrested and released in one county and arrested for a new crime elsewhere with no record of the prior arrest.

The Justice Department wants to modernize the system by allowing courts to submit information through a Web site, but doesn’t have the money to do so, said Stacye Dorrington, supervisor of the department’s criminal records and identification services office.

Similar problems occur in the Supreme Court, Gray said.

All cases there are filed as paper documents, which are then typed into a database using software purchased in 1989, she said.

The software notes that a case has been filed, but cannot track its status or remind justices of any court deadlines. That must be done manually.

“There are delays everywhere, at every stage,” Gray said.

Courts can assess a surcharge on some proceedings to pay for technology upgrades, but the ability to charge those fees expires in June and must be extended by the Legislature every two years, Oppedahl said.