The General Assembly’s interim commission on courts has posted agendas for August 22 (pdf) and August 28(pdf).
For August 22:
The Commission will receive an update from the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC), discuss public accessibility to statutes that are not compiled in the Indiana Code, and discuss the possible repeal of IC 33-30 concerning the establishment and operation of county courts (as of January 1, 2009, no county court will exist in Indiana).
Briefly – JTAC is the planned statewide computer system that would put various sorts of case information online. I’m not sure what the exact scope is at this point, but information could include case management information and possibly extend to online filing.
Statutes not compiled in the Indiana Code are sometimes referred to as “non-code” statutes. The idea is that the Code is for those laws of long duration and broad scope. Most often, statutes don’t get codified when they are of short duration. For example, when you set up a committee with staggered terms, you have to do an initial set up that staggers the membership by giving some members terms with shorter than normal durations. Since it happens only once, you don’t want to clutter up the Code with it. Non-Code provisions are published in the Acts of Indiana, but aren’t nearly as accessible as the online code — which is understandable since the laws in the Code tend to have a greater impact than non-code provisions.
County courts were sort of a hybrid between regular courts and small claims courts. They had jurisdictional limits of $10,000; a lesser known fact I once used to good effect when a big city lawyer from Indy, where I don’t think they had county courts, mistakenly filed suit in a nearby county court which has since been converted to a court of general jurisdiction.
For August 28:
At the meeting, the Commission will discuss judicial mandates and alternatives to the current system of judicial mandates, consider a request from Johnson County for additional judicial officers, discuss the need for a sixth three judge panel for the Indiana Court of Appeals, and discuss improving public access to information concerning retention elections for judges of the Indiana Supreme Court, Indiana Court of Appeals, and Indiana Tax Court.
Mandates have been coming up a fair amount recently as judges have sought to assert their authority over the operations of the courts in budgetary matters. Where department heads in other parts of county government are at the mercy of the county council in terms of approving their budgets and making sure they have the resources to accomplish their duties, courts can by-and-large dictate to the county council what their budgets are going to be. Fortunately, most judges — even the ones who end up having to use their mandate powers — seem to use this authority sparingly.
Hi Doug,
I came across your blog for the first time and it appears you may have an interest in JTAC but you state you are not sure of the scope of what JTAC has been doing.
As you may or may not know, the State Legislature and then Governor O’Bannon approved a user fee/tax of $7 on all new court filings in 2001. This $7 additional fee/tax is the primary funding source for JTAC’s attempt to compete against the taxpaying competitive marketplace for software that local county courts/clerks use to collect and share court information.
With nearly 2 million new filings per year statewide since 2001, there has been nearly $100 MILLION taken from our Hoosier economy to primarily fund JTAC’s anti-competitive intervention into the business of providing court information software.
I have not seen where there has been an objective investigation into the cost justification of JTAC’s actions and the nearly $100 MILLION and growing cost to Hoosiers needing access to the courts that primarily fund JTAC’s project. Can JTAC’s projects justify this tremendous cost burden which is in direct competition with what the taxpaying competitive marketplace has already been providing county government since 1986. The issue of the appropriateness of the Supreme Court even centrally housing this court information is a significant concern to the continuation of our current constitutional system of justice but also using the commercial internet to centrally collect and store this court information including confidential court information invokes many significant concerns including the tremendous ongoing costs and the increased security issues of their centralized internet based methodology for collecting and storing court and personal information.
Additionally, the Supreme Court and State has forced county government to incur a horrible financial burden by forcing county government to fund nearly all of the ongoing court costs but with only being allowed to collect 25% of court fees/revenues. Does this make sense? It is a no wonder that judges need to mandate and forces county government to want to dump all funding and control over local courts to the Supreme Court. Will this intentional funding disparity force counties to give up control over local courts to the Supreme Court and be the first step to removing accountability from local voters by giving unfettered and total control of local courts to un-elected Supreme Court Justices?
Additionally, there is about $60 million of public defender fees which is essentially a welfare issue that county government is being forced to fund. Why isn’t the State or Feds picking up all of this mandated welfare cost?
It must be noted that the Indiana Supreme Court’s ardent zeal and desire to involve themselves in the operations of the trial courts is an endeavor that they alone considered necessary and not with any significant petition from county courts and clerks and even against a reputable consulting opinion in 1995. The Indiana Supreme Court may just have taken measures fatal to the constitutional integrity of a fiscally responsible government agency.
In these difficult financial times for Hoosier taxpayers and for the integrity of government, I hope JTAC’s project can receive the appropriate evaluation it requires and with publication to all taxpayers.
Respectfully,
Kevin Cook