Texas Reporting Requirements Project

The following report was submitted by the consultant, Mr. Ferrell, and does not necessarily represent the views of the Judicial Committee on Information Technology, the Texas Judicial Council, or the Office of Court Administration.

*Note: Appendix A is not available at this time

Texas Reporting Requirements Project Prepared for The Texas Office of Court Administration by Charles E. Ferrell

Table of Contents

Introduction

Scope of Project

The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) currently has implemented a summary statistical reporting system to capture caseload information on the activities in the four levels of trial courts in Texas. This system has been installed for a number of years with no major modifications. There are a number of problems associated with the current reporting system.

• The accuracy and uniformity of the data are questionable.
• There are limited resources available to audit the data.
• A substantial amount of the data being reported is not utilized.
• The data as reported, is of little use in supporting any management decisions.

To address these problems the Texas (OCA) submitted a request to SEARCH Group Incorporated requesting that technical assistance funds be allocated to facilitate the assessment of the current system and to begin the initial development of a new or revised system. The technical assistance request also included a request for the participation and involvement of The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the State Courts Automation Standards Consortium. The NCSC will collect and review the reporting requirements from six states and produce a comparative analysis of these states systems for use in developing a new system for Texas. It is anticipated that a model system will be developed as a result of this comparative analysis of the seven state reporting systems.

The collection and compilation of summary caseload statistics on the activities of the courts have very little utility. Publishing the number of cases filed and disposed once a year provides little information to base management decisions upon or to support policy changes or decisions. The ever-growing requirements and needs for information on the performance and accountability of the court system grow daily.

The OCA and other state and local agencies need accurate, timely and useful information on the activities of court cases and the courts themselves. The elimination and reduction of the amount of data reported should be implemented where possible. The integration and sharing of data among agencies should be a priority to ensure data integrity through the elimination of reporting the same data multiple times in different formats.

Changing the way courts operate and conduct business is always a challenge. When these changes occur, they often affect relationships and the perceived status of the participants. In 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote:

We must bear in mind, then that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the initiator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things while those who ex-pect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.⁽¹⁾

The ultimate worth of any statistical reporting system is to the accountability of the court system. The system must be able to inform the public, the legislature and other agencies about the performance of the judicial branch. The integration and sharing of information within the court structure and with other governmental agencies provides for a cohesive and integrated system of justice.

The court system in Texas is like many state court systems in that they collect large volumes of information. In a time of ever increasing caseloads and demands for information, the judges, court clerks and administrators are required to do more with fewer resources. The current reporting of raw statistics to the OCA is not adequate in its structure to support and respond to these demands for information. Thus, new reporting requirements need to be developed to respond to these demands.

Interagency Integration

The need to share information among justice related agencies in Texas is becoming more and more important. The elimination of duplicate data entry, and access to information maintained in other justice agencies system becomes critical at key decision points in the justice process. An integrated system would allow multiple users access to information from remote locations which in turn would initiate certain actions by the various components in the justice process. The filing of a court disposition would for example initiate one action that would be shared by the courts, corrections, probation and criminal history systems. Integration of information would allow for the timely and efficient sharing of information among the justice agencies in Texas. The systematic exchange of data between and among justice agencies is technically feasible in today's technology world. There are several key points that are derived from an integration of information; (1) data is captured at the logical entry point and does not have to be duplicated or restructured; (2) the data is captured once and only once and, (3) the system is structured to accommodate future reporting of data as additional elements are identified.

Historically, the courts and criminal history repository agencies have inherently maintained different systems to serve their individual needs. The court system has developed systems to ease and monitor the flow of cases brought before them. Most criminal history systems were developed to track disparate events to a single individual by comparison of a unique identifying characteristic. Courts are contributors to the criminal history records when they dispose of charges against an individual brought before them. It can be said that court dispositions are the key segment in that they are the final determinants of charges filed against a person. The logical solution to enhancing both the court and criminal history repository systems is the integration and sharing of information.

Over the past several months the OCA staff and Department of Public Safety (DPS) staff has met to discuss and review how the two agencies can share information. These discussions have been very beneficial to both entities in that the sharing of information eliminates redundant reporting and enhances the quality of data that is reported. The DPS has the infrastructure and network to support the collection of court data that would support the implementation of a new reporting system for the courts as well as improve the quality of the data collected by the DPS.

Managing Change

Changing the methodology in the way the courts have reported data to the OCA will be a challenge. The development of a new system will be a long term effort and require the commitment of time and resources working diligently together in order to achieve success.

The key to implementing a new reporting system will be the human factor. Technology changes rapidly where people are reluctant to change at all. Focusing on the technical merits of the new system will not guarantee acceptance. It is important to involve the users in the decision making process by allowing them to assist in problem solving and by building organizational consensus. Communication at all levels of the court system must occur.

A Users Committee should be appointed as soon as possible to assist in making working-level decisions. The committee should include all levels of court personnel who are familiar with the operational aspects of data reporting and the inherent problems with the existing reporting system.

By involving the users at the earliest stages of development the success of the project is greatly enhanced.

Reporting Requirements

A New Reporting System

The current reporting system in place in Texas has been operational for a number of years with little or no change. In reviewing the Texas Annul Report it appears that there has been a tendency to collect and publish aggregate numbers of cases filed and disposed regardless of their practical utility. The current system does not avail itself to any trend analysis, caseload balancing, resource needs identification or evaluation of court system performance. The challenges of developing a new system will be many. The following are challenges and problems that must be addressed:

• data collection methodology
• elimination of redundant data reporting to multiple agencies
• lack of common terminology and definition
• lack of a common case classification structure
• case counting variations by local processing
• vague court procedures for docketing and accounting for certain types of court actions
• financial accounting practices
• inconsistent and unreliable court records

As mentioned earlier the development of a new reporting system will require a commitment of time and resources. All of the challenges and problems associated with developing a new system can be resolved. In the end, the new system should serve as an account system of the courts' business. This accountability should extend beyond minimal compliance to statutory requirements. The system should produce information and an awareness of the needs of the judiciary and its operations. It should provide a base of information that allows the OCA to respond to programmatic, structural, and administrative changes that have or will affect the court system. The new system should and will prove to be cost effective and beneficial to the entire Texas court system.

The development of a new system should be implemented in a modular fashion. The size and complexity of the Texas trial court system require this type of approach in order to enhance the probability of success. It is also recommended that each module be thoroughly tested in several jurisdictions prior to statewide implementation.

The Modules

The Criminal Case Reporting Module

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) collects extensive information on the activities of defendants who are alleged to have committed felony and/or type A and B misdemeanor offenses. This system has been in place for a number of years and has the capability of collecting electronic and manual data from the courts. A review of the DPS court segment record structure revealed that the elements collected satisfy the reporting requirements envisioned for the OCA system. The new criminal module would also be implemented in the District and County level trial courts.

After several meetings between the DPS and OCA staffs it was determined that the existing DPS system, with minor modifications, would serve as the most cost effective vehicle to collect criminal case reporting information. The DPS also agreed to collect each and every criminal case to account for all criminal activity in the State. By using the existing DPS system the elimination of redundant reporting and better quality control will result. The benefits that can be realized by the OCA are numerous. They are:

• the OCA will have access to an extensive data base of information
• time line information will be available by case type
• the capability to generate ad hoc reports by criminal offense code (statute of citation)
• sentencing information available by defendant
• fine and cost information available
• extensive information on DWI cases
• expanded information on criminal activities by juveniles
• expanded information on methods of disposition

Appendix A contains a detailed layout of the DPS criminal case record data elements.

Civil and Probate Module

As in the criminal module the civil module would serve as a starting point for establishing a statewide standard for electronic filing of civil case data in the District and County level trial courts. Much of the data that is currently being collected provides little information on activities of the courts in handling civil type cases. A general grouping of case types does not lend itself to an accounting of what constitutes, for example, the 138,000 motions to modify categorized under "other civil". How were these motions disposed ? The case-by-case reporting of civil data will greatly expand the possibilities for analysis of the workload in the courts handling civil matters.

The use of tables to reflect the types of case filings, types of motions filed , and how these filings were disposed, provides flexibility in changing the data collected and eases the burden of data entry for the court clerks. The civil module would also use tables currently installed by the DPS to identify the county and the originating agency ID of the court to reduce the amount of data entry required by the court clerks. The following is a list of the minimum data elements required for reporting civil data. Please note that the case types table and method of dispositions table are not inclusive of all the possibilities that could be included.

Civil Case Data Elements (Table)

The flexibility to make changes in the civil module through the use of tables provides an unlimited structuring of the data collected from the courts. The identification of certain types of cases such as the silicon implant cases could be easily tracked statewide and consolidated by regions for disposition of motions and other matters. The greatest potential of this module is the creation of a Court Web Page on the Internet that would provide access for electronic filing of civil data in the non-automated rural courts.

Juvenile, Family Relations and Child Support Modules

There exists a great amount of duplicate reporting of data in the juvenile, child support and family relations areas. In many instances this data is reported on paper forms and keyed by the respective receiving agency. The manual collection and entry of this data creates time lags that cause the data to be more than six months old when it is reported in a final format. The ongoing discussions among the Office of Attorney General, Texas Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Office of Court Administration, and the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services should be formalized so that a viable solution can be developed to electronically capture this information.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are provided for consideration, thought, and discussion as the Texas Judicial Council, the Judicial Committee on Information Technology, and the Office of Court Administration review the findings contained within this report.

RECOMMENDATION: A Users Committee of court officials and clerical staff should be appointed to review and monitor the implementation of the various modules.

RECOMMENDATION: The Texas Judicial Council should approve a pilot implementation of the civil and criminal modules in six jurisdictions that would include District and County Courts.

RECOMMENDATION: The Office of Court Administration should identify several key persons who can dedicate their time and effort to this project and work with the Users Committee.

RECOMMENDATION: The Office of Court Administration should begin development of the electronic filing system for the civil module.

RECOMMENDATION: Discussions among the various agencies handling juvenile, family relations, and child support continue on a formal basis.

RECOMMENDATION: The Texas Judicial Council should appoint an Ad Hoc Committee to review the Texas Annual Report. The Committee shall report to the Council the distinctive changes in format and structure they would recommend be included in the Annual Report.

RECOMMENDATION: There should be no changes to the methodology and data collected from the Justice of Peace Courts and Municipal Courts made until an in-depth review of the cost and benefits of such changes can be analyzed.

1. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince 22 (Lester G. Crockered.1963).

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