The Harrison Circuit and Superior Courts and County Clerk’s office have successfully installed and are successfully operating a new 21st-century computer system called “Odyssey.” Odyssey connects Harrison County’s Courts and Clerk to a continually growing network of courts and clerks and law enforcement and other state agencies.  With Odyssey’s installation in Harrison County, 15 counties and 45 courts in the state are using the new system.  These include the courts and clerks in Floyd and Washington Counties; the courts and clerk in Clark County are scheduled to be added soon.

The upgrade to Odyssey in Harrison County is part of the Indiana Supreme Court’s effort to equip every trial court with a 21st-century case management system.  The goal is to connect courts with each other and law enforcement and other state agencies that need and use court information.  Odyssey also makes court information available to the public over the internet at no charge. 

With Odyssey, the estimated 6,400 new cases filed in Harrison County each year will be managed by a state of the art computer system.  Judge Harris Lloyd “Tad” Whitis of the Harrison Circuit Court explained, “Properly running the courts involves more than decisions made on the bench, it is also about making business decisions that are good for the taxpayers.  Having Odyssey will allow us to manage the courts more efficiently in this electronic computer age.”

Harrison County Clerk Sherry Brown also is pleased with the upgrade.  “I would like to stress the ease of the financial process in Odyssey.  Closing out the books daily with our previous case management system was a chore and with Odyssey it is incredibly easy. I believe that one of the major benefits of using Odyssey will be the ability to look up the name of a person charged with an infraction in our county to see if there is a warrant for their arrest in any other Odyssey county.”

Odyssey was first installed in ten Indiana courts on a pilot basis in December 2007 under the direction of the Indiana Supreme Court’s Division of State Court Administration’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC).  Indiana Supreme Court Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr., who chairs JTAC, congratulated Clerk Brown, Judge Whitis, Harrison Superior Court Judge Roger D. Davis, and their staffs for successfully installing Odyssey.  “This is a major accomplishment and the people of Harrison County should be proud of the hard work done by their Clerk and Judges and their staffs to make it happen.  Having this advanced technology will mean better service for the county’s citizens, will increase public safety because of its connections to law-enforcement, and because JTAC pays for the computer software, using Odyssey will save money for the county’s taxpayers as well.”

Courts pay no installation costs, training costs, license fees, or annual maintenance costs for Odyssey.  Those costs are paid by JTAC from the proceeds of a court filing fee dedicated to the project by the General Assembly.  Odyssey is designed to be implemented statewide and is being installed without disrupting everyday court business or closing Indiana courts. 

• Odyssey is operating in 49 Indiana courts in 17 counties as of January 4, 2010
• More than 21% of all the new cases filed in Indiana are in Odyssey
• The busiest court in the state, Marion County “traffic court,” uses Odyssey
• Over 250,000 traffic cases have been sent electronically to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles through Odyssey
• 5 counties used typewriters and/or scroll books to manage court records before Odyssey
• 23 different and unrelated court record management systems currently exist statewide and these systems do not communicate with each other
• Indiana invested $7.7 million in the statewide licensing for Odyssey
• Information on cases in Odyssey is available to Internet users at courts.IN.gov at no cost

Odyssey is just one of the Indiana Supreme Court’s technology improvement initiatives.  JTAC is providing Indiana courts and clerks statewide with additional computer resources to assist them in their work to better serve the public.  For example:

(1) JTAC has installed in every court in Indiana with traffic infraction jurisdiction computer software that sends notification of the disposition of traffic cases to the BMV electronically;
(2) using computer software written by JTAC, state troopers and deputies and police officers in 148 law-enforcement agencies in Indiana are able to use scanners to issue traffic citations and warnings;
(3) all 92 Indiana counties have access to a statewide master jury list created by JTAC;
(4) also using computer software written by JTAC, judges in every county in Indiana that issue domestic violence protection orders notify local law enforcement when those orders are issued and the orders are placed immediately in the protection order registries maintained by the Indiana State Police and the FBI;
(5) 54 Indiana counties and the Department of Health use JTAC technology that has eliminated manual entry by county clerks and ISDH of marriage licenses;
(6) 37 Indiana counties and the Department of Revenue under Commissioner John Eckart use JTAC technology that eliminates manual entry by county clerks and DOR of tax warrants;
(7) to implement last year’s property tax reforms, juvenile probation officers and the Department of Child Services use JTAC technology that eliminates the manual entry by probation officers and DCS of information on children for whom DCS will be financing services; and,
(8) most recently, JTAC developed technology for trial courts to notify federal authorities electronically about individuals who should not possess a firearm because of mental health problems.

The Indiana Supreme Court recently received three prestigious national technology and safety awards because of the above mentioned projects. The Court is the recipient of the Best Practices Award by the Association of Transportation Safety Information Professionals, the Governors Highway Safety Association Peter K. O’Rourke Special Achievement Award, and a National Center for State Courts G. Thomas Munsterman Award for Jury Innovations.  The Court has received these awards in large part because of its close working relationship on technology projects with agencies in the Daniels Administration, including, the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, the Indiana Office of Technology, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Indiana Department of Revenue, and the Indiana State Police.