Commonwealth Online Court Orders
Overview:
The Commonwealth Online Court Orders (COCO) is intended to streamline the overall court order process for the Circuit Courts in the Commonwealth of Virginia. With COCO, designated high-level users will be able to create and maintain a collection of flexible templates for numerous types of orders and dynamic banks of frequently used text blocks and conditions. Judges will be able to review completed orders securely online and approve orders with the click of a button. The Department of Corrections and other approved entities will have a searchable interface to readable, completed court orders enabling them to quickly and accurately respond to order information as needed for correctional facilities. Access to signed orders will be managed by users logging into COCO. Signed orders will be presented to users in a secure Adobe Acrobat PDF file. Virginia Interactive will be utilizing Adobe’s LiveCycle product to produce and manage secure PDF files.
Description:
Over 170,000 court orders were prepared by Virginia courts in 2005. Currently in Chesterfield, orders are prepared via a manual process using comprehensive word document templates that must be customized for each criminal sentencing. Each order, on average, takes about 30-45 minutes to complete. In many court systems, due to heavy workloads, inadequate staffing and numerous other conflicting responsibilities, preparers are struggling with completing these orders and acquiring the presiding judges’ signatures within in the statutorily mandated timeframes. Sanctions and penalties can be issued to entities that do not meet these deadlines.
An automated web-based solution alleviates many of the problems impacting the timely generation of court orders. Efficiencies would be gained in all phases of the court order creation process including:
- Automation of trial, trial and sentencing, sentencing, show cause revocation and amended orders.
- Integration with Case Management System(s) for defaulting certain case information.
- Incorporating an extensive repository of prepared trial and sentencing conditions.
- Automatic transmittal of prepared orders to judges.
- Controls for read only or read/write access to court order information.
- Integration of an efficient digital signature process.
- Convenient, centralized, web-based location for access to court orders.
- Notifications about critical dates in the court order lifecycle.
- Secure and controlled access to and transmission of court orders.
- Reduction in errors and missing required information
- Improved searching, reporting and tracking capabilities.
Benefits:
- Time
Reduces Processing Time – Currently creating a single court order can take up to 45 minutes to complete. Given the average volume of 21,000 orders processed by Chesterfield Circuit Court, this can translate into an annual time commitment of 15,750 hours. With the implementation of the COCO application, the estimated time savings when preparing an order will go down by 10 minutes per order, an estimated total savings of 3,850 hours annually.
- Money
Reducing dollars - The combination of reducing processing time, saving paper and improving the information sharing across agencies will save money and enable the Chesterfield Circuit Courts clerks the ability to reallocate staff to other critical work. Furthermore, COCO will minimize the risk of acquiring sanctions and penalties for missed statutory deadlines.
- “Green”
Saving paper – Each order generates an average of 12 pages for an annual paper volume of over 250,000 sheets of paper. The new technology will give clerks, judges and essential consumers of the court orders the ability to preview and send orders online before printing. These steps are projected to save 75,000 hard copies and 7 trees annually.
Links:
Chesterfield County – COCO web address: TBA
Online application: March 2009
Virginia.gov Open House 2009 |
1111 East Main Street, Suite901
| Richmond, VA 23219
Phone: (804) 786-4718 | Toll Free: 1-877-4VA-EGOV (1-877-482-3468)