Justice Electronic Library System

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

In San Diego County, the Justice Electronic Library System (JELS) completely automates the distribution, receipt, and off-site use of Probation documents, police reports, and other documents received from outside parties that are all required for Juvenile Court Delinquency hearings. This system provides each Stakeholder (Probation, DA, County Defense Agencies) with their own electronic “Business Center”. JELS also automatically establishes and maintains for each Stakeholder, secure, separate Minor (Defendant) Sites containing e-Case Files -over 45,000 - which automatically receive and categorize case-related data together with all the documents associated for that minor. JELS also sends an email alert to the case worker or attorney when it receives new documents for their cases. This automated case file structure is the electronic equivalent of the case hard file, and is also leveraged by the JELS to provide each attorney or court officer with the ability to automatically create a custom e-briefcase consisting of e-case files containing documents for work offline or in Court; eliminating the need for traditional hard files. As hard files and paper have been around since the inception of the court process, the JELS program is revolutionary in that it takes the full route from e-document generation to e-case review to e-use in Court.