Title: Indigent Defense and Technology: A Progress Report
Series: Monograph
Author: The Spangenberg Group
Published: November 1999
Subject: Technology in Law Enforcement, Court Technology, Information
Systems
23 pages
50,800 bytes

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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
810 Seventh Street NW.
Washington, DC 20531

Janet Reno
Attorney General

Daniel Marcus
Acting Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson
Assistant Attorney General

Noel Brennan
Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Nancy E. Gist
Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs
World Wide Web Home Page
www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance
World Wide Web Home Page
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

For grant and funding information contact
U.S. Department of Justice Response Center
1-800-421-6770

This document was prepared by The Spangenberg Group for the Bureau of
Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official
position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National
Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
and the Office for Victims of Crime.

----------------------------

Indigent Defense and Technology: A Progress Report

November 1999

NCJ 179003

Prepared by The Spangenberg Group 
Robert L. Spangenberg, Marea L. Beeman, David J. Carroll, 
David Freedman, Evelyn Pan, David J. Newhouse, Dorothy Chan

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From the Director

Too often, citizens and public officials do not acknowledge that adequately
supporting indigent defenders is critical to preserving the constitutional rights of
individuals accused of crimes. To function properly, the criminal justice system
needs all of its components--prosecution, adjudication, corrections, and
defense--operating effectively.

One important way we can bolster indigent defense in this country is by
educating criminal justice practitioners, elected officials, and the public about
the challenges facing the indigent defense community. This BJA report series
addresses key issues that attorneys and managers in indigent defense systems
struggle with every day. It is our hope that the information and
recommendations provided here serve as a valuable resource for all of us
working to improve the justice system.    

Nancy E. Gist

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Contents

I. Introduction

II. Online Technology: A Powerful New Tool

III. Managing Case-Specific Information

IV. In the Office: Technology's Benefits and Burdens

V. Case Tracking

VI. Systemwide Information Integration

VII. Conclusion

VIII. Appendix: Overview of Survey Results

IX. For More Information

----------------------------

About the Authors of This Progress Report
This progress report was researched and written by the staff of The
Spangenberg Group, a nationally recognized criminal justice research and 
consulting firm working to improve the delivery of indigent defense services.
Located in West Newton, Massachusetts, The Spangenberg Group has
provided research and technical assistance for justice organizations in every
state in the nation.

----------------------------

I. Introduction

Just a few years ago, an attorney in Rhode Island's Public Defender Office, like
attorneys in other public defender offices around the country, spent much of her
time completing routine, labor-intensive tasks. If a motion was due the next day,
she would likely write it in longhand for a secretary to type. She had to call
colleagues to find out what had happened on a similar motion a few weeks
earlier before the same judge. And she had to take time out of her day to sit in
the state supreme court's law library to Shepardize the cases she had cited in
the motion.

Today in Rhode Island, the agencies that make up that state's criminal justice
system have created a comprehensive, statewide information system, and this
technology has given public defenders unprecedented ease of access to the
information they need. Now, that same attorney can use her personal computer
to search quickly through an online file of motions that attorneys in her office
have filed in recent weeks. Instead of spending hours writing out the motion,
she can electronically edit one of the samples, inserting the facts of her case.
She can use her office's shared CD-ROM to Shepardize the cases cited in her
motion without leaving her office. For each task, technology has brought the
information she needs to her desktop; she no longer wastes valuable time
seeking it out.

This Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) special report looks at how technology
is changing the way attorneys and staff work in public defender offices. Is
technology improving case processing efficiency and the quality of
representation of indigent defendants? Or, are the equipment, training, and
maintenance costs of new information systems draining resources from pubic
defender offices without significantly benefiting either attorneys or the clients
they represent? 

It is clear that in public defender offices like Rhode Island's, technology is
dramatically changing how public defenders and support staff work.
Technology is improving client access to attorneys and attorney access to
information. It is improving case information management, attorneys'
presentation of evidence in court, and attorneys' access to routine pleadings.
Little is known, however, about how information integration is affecting the
broader issues of case processing and client representation. 

Public defenders' ability to use technology effectively is being hampered by
disparities in resources and technological expertise. Efforts to integrate
information in criminal justice agencies are making progress in a few justice
systems, but this kind of information sharing is not yet readily available to public
defenders in most areas of the country. Further, many public defender offices
are struggling to train staff to use newly acquired technological equipment and
information systems. In these offices, the acquisition of sophisticated technology 
is not saving attorneys time and resources because the technology is either not
used effectively or not used at all. 

The conclusions of this report are drawn primarily from a survey of public
defender offices throughout the United States and the experiences of public
defenders in selected jurisdictions. The survey examined the availability and use
of a wide range of technology, from fax machines, photographic equipment, and
multimedia evidentiary presentation tools to systemwide integrated information
systems. Overwhelmingly, respondents felt that in the past 5 years technology
has improved the quality of representation their office provides. Many
respondents also reported, however, that they are not fully using available
technology because their offices do not provide adequate training or do not
provide access to new information systems after they are implemented.

This report does not address the use of technology by assigned counsel or
contract programs. The survey on which many of this report's conclusions are
based was not administered to assigned counsel or contract public defender 
programs due to cost and time restrictions. Further, assigned counsel and
contract programs do not participate formally in most local justice systems'
integrated information systems. It is difficult, therefore, to determine the extent
to which assigned counsel and attorneys working for contract programs have
benefited from recent technological innovations.

II. Online Technology: A Powerful New Tool

Perhaps the most important technological advance for public defenders in the
past decade has been the development of desktop computer technology. New
computer network and Internet tools are helping public defenders conduct legal
research and write pleadings and briefs with a speed and ease unimaginable a
short time ago. In Michigan, criminal defense attorneys in the State Appellate
Defender Office (SADO) use new computer technology to quickly access
information that in the past was either difficult to obtain or unavailable. 

"Our goal was to make choices that improved the quality and reduced the time,
cost, or the drudgery of everyone's tasks," said James Neuhard, SADO's
Executive Director. "The choice ought not be just for speed but for the value
added. The payoff of 17 years of work to create an integrated system has been
reductions in the ratio of support staff to attorneys, reductions in the cost of
production, dramatic reductions in the turnaround time from drafts to filing in
court, and reductions in the time it takes our attorneys to access information."


Since 1972, SADO has served as a depository of briefs and pleadings filed by
attorneys in various cases. Attorneys use this brief bank as a library of case-law
documents that they can review and copy. Brief banks save attorneys
enormous amounts of time by eliminating the need to re-create, each time, the
basic information common to every argument and citation.

SADO's clearinghouse has evolved into a Web site that includes two large,
full-text, searchable databases. The first contains all pleadings, manuals,
newsletters, and other documents prepared or collected by SADO, and the
second contains messages exchanged between registered attorneys on matters
of criminal practice and procedure. The messages are exchanged in the SADO
Forum, a 500-member virtual community of practicing criminal defense
attorneys across the state. In addition, SADO prepares summaries for all
published criminal decisions and selected unpublished criminal decisions.

For SADO and many other defender offices, the upgrade in technology from
providing legal assistance by phone to providing it electronically via a Web site
has cut costs significantly. For users of the system, the upgrade has enhanced
the speed and efficiency with which they can obtain crucial information.

Public Defenders in the United States
Three models in the United States provide representation to those accused of
crimes and unable to afford counsel: public defender, assigned counsel, and
contract.

--In the public defender model, representation is provided by a public or
private nonprofit organization with full- or part-time staff attorneys and support
personnel, including investigators, paralegals, social workers, and secretaries.

--In the assigned counsel model, a jurisdiction assigns indigent criminal cases to
private attorneys on a systematic or an ad hoc basis.

--In the contract model, a jurisdiction enters into a contract with an attorney, 
a group of attorneys, a bar association, or a private nonprofit organization to
provide representation in some or all indigent defendant cases.

From these three models, states have developed their indigent defense delivery
systems. Many states employ some combination of the models. For example,
even in states with a statewide public defender system, private attorneys are
appointed to represent conflict cases and, in some instances, to alleviate
excessive public defender caseloads. In other states, a different model is used in
each county: a public defender office in one, assigned counsel in another, and
contract counsel in a third.

The most recent comprehensive national survey of indigent defense programs,
conducted in 1986, reported that assigned counsel programs operate in 52
percent of the nation's counties, public defender programs operate in 37
percent, and contract systems operate in 11 percent.* Although these data
have not been updated, it is widely believed that significantly more counties now
use public defender programs and contract counsel as their primary indigent
defense delivery systems.

Public defenders are most commonly found in urban areas, where the number
of criminal case filings is high and economies of scale make staffed programs a
more cost-effective and efficient way of representing large numbers of indigent
defendants. In the past decade, a growing number of counties have opened
"second" public defender offices, or conflict offices, to handle a portion of the
cases in which the primary public defender has a conflict of interest.

Public defender programs are less common in rural areas, but some small, rural
jurisdictions are served by part-time public defenders or regional public
defenders. In these areas, public defenders, like judges, often ride circuit,
traveling to meet with clients and appear in court in multiple counties.

*Criminal Defense for the Poor, 1986. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, September
1988. Research conducted by The Spangenberg Group.

III. Managing Case-Specific Information

A second area in which technology has improved litigation is the management of
case-related information. Pioneering jurisdictions such as the one profiled below
are using advancements in multimedia technology to create case management
systems that allow attorneys to retrieve various case-related documents and
items of evidence from a single virtual file. 

One of the most innovative recent applications of technology to manage case
information was developed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1997. That year, Mark
Stephens, the Knoxville District Public Defender, was working on a robbery
case that had produced a great deal of evidence, including 911 tapes and
transcripts, FBI composites, surveillance and evidentiary photographs,
time-lapse crime scene videos, and police reports. Concerned about keeping all
of these items organized and accessible, Stephens met with his office's
information technology specialist, who was developing a case management
system. Their conversations led to the realization that attorneys could use the
technologies being developed for the case management system to manage
case-related multimedia. They called their new application Virtual Casefile.

Virtual Casefile digitizes and stores video- and audiotapes, photographs, and
documents on a powerful workstation. These data are categorized,
cross-referenced, and integrated with a graphical user interface. The data are
then stored permanently on a recordable CD-ROM. The information is
organized in much the same way an attorney might organize a case file in
banker's boxes. With equal ease, the attorney can read the original police
report or search warrant, view a lineup or photo of physical evidence, listen to
a recording of a 911 call, navigate a virtual reality crime scene, or watch a clip
from the local news using the Virtual Casefile's simple point-and-click interface.

Virtual Casefile is extremely helpful to attorneys handling first-degree murder or
death penalty cases, which typically involve an overwhelming amount of
evidence and case information in multiple formats. Attorneys working on the
case can access information at any time--from an office, at the courthouse, or at
home--without wasting time tracking down videotapes, televisions, VCRs,
audiotapes, and tape players. The CD-ROM itself requires little storage space,
and it can be copied and distributed to every defense attorney working on the
case.

In preparing for the robbery case, Stephens brought a laptop and his Virtual
Casefile CD-ROM to the jail where his client was being detained before trial.
He reviewed the evidence with his client, anticipating what a prosecutor might
present in court. They reviewed the time-lapse video evidence together
frame-by-frame and examined the police lineups. They compared the 911
description of the perpetrator with actual photos of the defendant's clothing
seized by police. Virtual Casefile gave Stephens' client a clear picture of the
evidence he would face in court, and their discussion was made more
meaningful by their ability to review the evidence together.

IV. In the Office: Technology's Benefits and Burdens

Advancements in technology that have streamlined the traditional tasks of
lawyering are also changing office culture and structure. Because technology
allows attorneys to do more of their own research and preparation of materials,
many offices have cut costs by shifting resources from support staff to desktop
information systems.

Acquiring technology, however, carries risks. New information systems bring
with them a need for training and expertise that, in a busy public defender
office, can become a serious impediment to the system's day-to-day use.
According to the survey conducted for this report, defender offices that form
technology committees and involve senior managers as part of the
decisionmaking process have the best means to evaluate both the need for new
equipment and the capability to provide adequate training. The offices with the
least effective transitions to new technology vest this authority in single
individuals who do not have the capacity to perform evaluations of need and
capability. 

Disparities Among Public Defender Offices
All of the offices in the survey reported using some form of recent technology,
but they revealed wide disparities in how much they invest in technology and the
extent to which technology is used in their day-to-day operations. The
disparities occur even in public defender offices within a single state, especially
in jurisdictions in which the provision of indigent defense is a county
responsibility. 

Wide disparities between defender offices were reported in the following areas:
(1) knowledge of computer technology by management; (2) ability to build
support to secure general fund appropriations or alternative funding sources for
acquiring new technology and training staff; (3) staff capabilities to use
technology and office capabilities to train staff and provide technical support;
and (4) established contacts with technology specialists in other criminal justice
agencies.

Two respondents to the survey, public defender offices from the same state,
represent the extremes of this disparity. One office has  no automated case
management system and still manually tracks cases. The other is implementing a
fully automated case-tracking system that allows its staff to check individual
case event history and calendaring; check open or pending cases by case type,
attorney, date, or court; and run assignment and disposition reports by a variety
of criteria. The system also generates reports during the appropriations process.
It is rated excellent by the staff in processing speed, user-friendliness, and
reliability.

Both offices reported that their attorneys and support staff can access the
Internet, other online research services, and CD-ROM case law databases and
digests. Yet in the first office there is only one computer for every seven
attorneys and only three for every four support staff. In the second, every
attorney and support staff person has his or her own computer. 

When asked to describe the effect technology has had on the quality of
representation over the past 5 years, the office with substantially more
technology reported major improvements, whereas the other reported little or
no improvement due to lack of training, technical support, and funding.

V. Case Tracking

Technology's growing role in improving defendant representation is evident in
the courtroom case-tracking system used by the Legal Aid Society in the
Bronx, New York. Most mornings in criminal court mean heavy dockets and
busy schedules for Legal Aid attorneys in New York City. They must juggle the
responsibilities of interviewing defendants in the holding cells, calming
concerned family members, checking on defendants' prior criminal histories,
completing court paperwork, and consulting with colleagues. Often, they are
out of the courtroom when their next case is called.

To bring order to the flurry of activity that surrounds large urban arraignment
docket calls, the Legal Aid Society arranged for computers with links to its
case-tracking system to be installed in four Bronx arraignment courts. The
computer stations are staffed by Legal Aid arraignment clerks who enter court
information into the case-tracking system after arraignment. The clerks are
stationed at desks inside the well of the court, allowing them to hear the
proceedings and update records almost instantaneously. In this way, the clerks
catch data that might normally go unrecorded because they are missing from the
court paperwork or because the attorney's busy schedule does not allow him or
her to fill out paperwork completely or promptly. 

Attorneys leave their case files with the clerks and pursue other responsibilities
while the case is updated in the system. At the end of the day, arraignment
clerks generate an "arraignment summary report" that lists all the cases entered
that day. This report is matched against the daily calendar and the files to ensure
that all defendants represented by Legal Aid attorneys are duly recorded.

Having a constant Legal Aid presence in the courtrooms also benefits the
courts. Judges and court clerks turn to Legal Aid staff to keep the dockets
moving. Legal Aid clerks understand the scheduling needs of each attorney and 
can suggest how best to order the docket to limit the time court personnel are
left waiting. And Legal Aid staff know how to track down their attorneys
before the next case is called.

An overwhelming majority of public defender offices report using some form of
case-tracking software to input and access information about individual cases
and to prepare and run statistical reports on case trends. Case-tracking systems
are powerful tools to identify trends in case processing and to look at what is
causing those trends. Using these systems, public defender managers can
determine much more accurately whether case processing problems are
emanating from outside the office (for example, from the practices of judges or
prosecutors), within the office (inefficient attorneys or case-flow glitches), or
are specific to a particular type of case. 

Case-tracking systems are also saving public defender offices money. A good
example of this is in West Virginia, where all funds for indigent defense are
provided through the state's general fund. Public Defender Services (PDS)
administers, coordinates, and evaluates all local indigent defense programs in
the state. Currently, 23 of West Virginia's 55 counties are served by 15 public
defender corporations. The remaining 32 counties rely solely on assigned
counsel to provide representation to indigent defendants. Approximately 55
percent of indigent defense in the state is provided by public defenders, and 45
percent is provided by private counsel.

PDS is responsible for processing assigned counsel vouchers for the state as
well as compiling caseload data for the public defender corporations. In
October 1998, PDS installed a new assigned counsel voucher processing
system. Before the conversion, PDS operated on a DOS-based computer
system that required substantial personnel hours to enter voucher information.
Because of the large number of firms and private attorneys that accept assigned
counsel cases in West Virginia (approximately 800 payees), it took many
personnel hours to ensure that no duplicate vouchers were submitted,
processed, or paid. When counsel submitted multiple billings over several
months, duplicate payments often were not caught until months after payment.

The new PDS system operates in a Windows environment that includes
pulldown menus of attorneys, charges, case types, judges, circuits, and counties
from which the user can select the desired name or phrase instead of having to
key it in. The lists save a substantial amount of data-entry time by eliminating
key strokes. What is more important, the system eliminates wasted time
processing duplicate payments. Since its installation, the system has flagged
voucher errors worth more than $100,000.

VI. Systemwide Information Integration

The integrated criminal justice information systems now being developed and
implemented in local and regional justice systems across the country are
improving the efficiency and accuracy of court functions by reducing duplicate
data entry points. They are also, however, raising concerns for public defenders
about protection of the proprietary and sensitive information they need to
advocate vigorously for their clients. Integrated systems that preserve the
privacy of this information appear to enhance the performance of defender
offices and raise the quality of representation. The two jurisdictions discussed
below--Marin County, California, and Orange County, Florida--have achieved
this important balance.

Marin County, California
Officials in Marin County, California, view information technology as a part of
the overall county infrastructure. All county agencies are equipped with current
technology for their daily operations. County agencies' information technology
needs, including hardware, software, and technical assistance, are supported by
the Marin County Information Services and Technology Department (IST).
This integrated approach introduced technological parity among county
agencies, increased efficiency, and cut costs for the county.

IST has its own budget and is responsible for supplying and maintaining
information technology services in the county. To allow county agencies to
communicate with one another, IST wired them to the county's mainframe
computer through a wide area network (WAN). The public defender office is
networked via a local area network (LAN) to the county's WAN and to the
Internet. IST provides shared resources, such as e-mail, and serves as a help
desk to the public defender office. 

In addition, Marin County's legal offices, which include the county counsel,
public defender, and district attorney's offices, share a license for Westlaw legal
research software. The county supported this approach not only because it cut
costs, but also because it gave more attorneys and support staff access to
electronic legal research. The public defender office supplements Westlaw with
a single-user license for the Lexis-Nexis research system.

A second integral part of Marin's countywide infrastructure is the Criminal
Justice Information System (CJIS). CJIS is an integrated system that links the
police, district attorney, courts, public defender office, and probation
department. With the system, attorneys in the public defender office can access
court records, calendaring information, law enforcement booking data, charging
data, court data, and probation and civil case data. 

The majority of public defender programs surveyed reported that their
jurisdiction has some sort of shared, integrated criminal justice information
system. Some jurisdictions share information on a statewide basis, some do so
on a countywide basis, and a few share information by judicial district. Some
jurisdictions have integrated law enforcement information but deny public
defender offices access to that information.

In Marin County, access to information varies greatly from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction. Public defender offices reported having access to defendant arrest
records in about half of the integrated systems, and slightly more than half of the
systems provide defender offices access to defendants' biographical
information. Nearly all offices reported having access to court docket and
calendaring information, more than half have access to jail rosters, a third have
access to department of motor vehicles information, and a few systems share
defendant tax, property, and asset information.

Orange County, Florida
In the early 1990s, the public defender and state's attorney offices in Orange
County, Florida, agreed that they needed an integrated case management
system. The two agencies persuaded the Orange County Board of
Commissioners that such a system would cut costs significantly by moving cases
through the criminal justice system more efficiently. The system became
operational in 1992. 

Each day, the Orange County sheriff's, state's attorney, and public defender
offices enter information into an integrated database that tracks docket
numbers, basic client information, affidavits, attorney assignments, event history
and calendaring information, communications, criminal histories, discovery and
witness information, subpoenas, and sentencing information. The system is also
used to generate statistical reports such as caseload information. 

The state's attorney and public defender offices have avoided logistical
concerns over security or mishandling of proprietary information by developing
strict protocols for access to information that is not public. The public defender
office exercises discretion in deciding who may access certain contents of the
database. Private notes placed on the system by public defenders, for example,
are inaccessible to prosecutors and other attorneys. 

"Our system is an outstanding example of cooperation between opposing
agencies," said Joseph DuRocher, Public Defender for the Ninth Judicial Circuit
in Florida. "Our success in securing county support can be attributed to the time
and effort the two agencies spent working together to educate the
commissioners." 

Orange County's system has cut costs. First, the integrated database has
eliminated the need to enter the same information into separate prosecution and
defense databases, reducing the need for additional staff and the potential for
data entry errors. Second, because the data are accessible to state's attorneys
and public defenders early in the life of a case, meaningful work can begin
earlier, leading to quicker resolution of cases and decreasing the time
defendants must be detained before trial. Finally, the database helps defenders
and prosecutors move cases through the justice system more efficiently by
informing them of new events or the availability of discovery in a timely manner. 

VII. Conclusion

Public defender organizations across the country constantly face difficult
decisions about how to use limited budget resources, often placing human and
technological resource needs in competition. Advances in technology are
altering how indigent defense services are delivered, changing national
perceptions of what constitutes an efficiently managed public defender office,
and making decisions about the allocation of resources even more challenging.
In the years to come, the pace of technological change may make such choices
vital to the ability of public defender organizations to improve quality indigent
defense services. 

The experiences of the public defender offices studied for this report suggest
that the most effective users of technology do the following:
--Train all of their staff to use new technology.
--Employ an information specialist to manage information systems and to help
evaluate rapid changes in technology.
--Network with other public defenders and other information specialists to
avoid needlessly duplicating another office's advancements.
--Evaluate the current and future needs of the office with a committee made up
of representatives from every level of the organization.
--Build support from local elected officials and within the local criminal justice
system to secure general fund appropriations as well as funds from new
sources.

Local justice systems work most efficiently when the agencies that compose
them operate with parity in staffing and technological resources. Many public
defenders responding to this study felt that their office's technological
capabilities lag behind those of the other components in the criminal justice
system. Before the gap between defenders' technological capabilities and
those of prosecutors, courts, police, probation, and corrections widens, state
and local jurisdictions should recommit themselves to the ideals of balanced and
adequate criminal justice system funding, and they should provide public
defenders with the technological tools necessary to allow them to better serve
the people they are asked to defend.

As the experiences of the public defenders in this report make clear, building
specific systems for public defenders to share information with other criminal
justice agencies makes sense. When staff are adequately trained and
information is shared within a local justice system, technology improves
defenders' representation of clients, makes offices more efficient, and enhances
the capability of public defenders to evaluate their work.

Putting these impressive advances to work in every public defender office,
however, remains an elusive goal. Resources for acquiring technology and
providing training for staff still are not available to many offices. Moreover,
some offices continue to waste the funds they do have reinventing systems that
already exist. To bring technology's benefits to the work of more public
defenders, jurisdictions must redouble their efforts to share their successes and
failures with one another.

VIII. Appendix: Overview of Survey Results

The survey conducted for this report examined the use of a wide range of
technology by public defender offices in the United States. It was conducted
April 13-23, 1999, by the staff of The Spangenberg Group, a criminal justice
research and consulting firm in West Newton, Massachusetts, that specializes in
the study of indigent defense systems.

Part 1. Methodology
The Spangenberg Group sent survey questionnaires to 115 public defender
offices throughout the country to gather basic information about
computerization, case management, and information access capabilities. The
offices surveyed included all statewide trial and appellate defender offices, as
well as selected public defender offices in counties and judicial districts of
various populations and locations.[1] 

In total, 52 (or 45 percent) of the 115 surveys were returned. Defender offices
surveyed were grouped into six categories according to the size and scope of
the client population they serve, and responses were grouped in these
categories (table 1). The first category, "Statewide Public Defender Office,"
contains statewide programs that handle only trial representation or a mixture of
both trial and appellate representation. On average, these offices have a staff of
266 employees, 52 percent of whom are attorneys. The second category,
"Statewide Appellate Defender Offices," contains statewide offices that handle
only appellate representation. On average, these offices have a staff of 65
employees, 55 percent of whom are attorneys.

The other 37 respondents' public defender programs were categorized into four
tiers according to population. Table 1 displays the response rates and
population criteria for each category. Tier 1 programs (those with a client
population numbering more than 1 million), on average, consist of 256
employees, 59 percent of whom are attorneys. The average size of Tier 2
programs (those with a client population numbering between 500,000 and 1
million) is 75 employees, 62 percent of whom are attorneys. Tier 3 public
defender programs (those with a client population numbering between 100,000
and 499,999) have an average staff of 34 employees, 61 percent of whom are
attorneys. 

Response rates for each category are presented in table 1. No survey
responses were received from the Tier 4 programs (those with a client
population numbering less than 100,000).

Staff of The Spangenberg Group conducted a followup telephone survey of
Tier 4 programs to determine why these programs did not respond. Of the 10
program directors who participated in the phone survey, 70 percent cited a
lack of time due to their workload or part-time status. These programs were
excluded from the survey analysis.

FOOTNOTE:
[1] Because the survey respondents were not chosen statistically at random and
represent only a small portion of the national indigent defense community, the
survey results should be used for informational purposes only.
 
Part 2. The Survey Instrument
Survey respondents were asked to complete a 12-page questionnaire, divided
into four parts. Part One sought basic information about the respondent's office,
including how much of the organization's most recent budget was allocated to
technology issues. Part One also sought information about individuals within
each defender office who are responsible for support and maintenance in the
areas of case management, information integration, and litigation support.

Part Two focused exclusively on case management systems. Questions in this
section sought information about how public defenders use case management
systems in their daily activities and to what extent administrators use case
management information to assist them in projecting and reviewing the
organization's resource utilization.

Part Three surveyed ways in which information is shared among components of
a respondent's justice system. Part Four sought information about the ways in
which public defenders are using technology for litigation support. This section
collected information about the technologies available for investigative and
evidentiary work, as well as emerging in-court uses of technology such as video
conferencing and multimedia evidentiary presentation tools.

Part 3. Survey Results: Technology Budgets, Staff, and Needs
The survey asked defender offices to provide information about their overall
budget and the portion of the budget dedicated to technology. On average,
respondents' technology budgets make up 2.7 percent of their total budgets.
Table 2 displays the average, median, and range of overall and technology
budgets for public defender programs submitting information. Table 2 also
calculates the percentage of the overall budget devoted to technology in each
program category.

To ensure that the public defender technology budgets reported were not
aberrations, the survey asked respondents to estimate the amount their
programs spent annually on technology over the past 3 years. Table 3 displays
this information for 39 of the 52 respondents.

Another measure of technology use surveyed for the report was whether public
defender offices employ an individual to maintain the office's management
information system (MIS). If an office answered yes, it was asked to specify
whether the individual was a full-time or part-time staff member dedicated to
management information systems, an outside consultant, or an existing staff
member who divides his or her time between system upkeep and other duties.

The great majority of public defender offices surveyed (84.3 percent) employ
an individual--whether a staff member or outside consultant--dedicated to
maintaining management information systems (table 4). However, nearly half of
the offices (47.1 percent) use an existing staff member who performs other
duties.

Defender offices were asked to list their most pressing technological needs.
Several themes emerged from the data received from the 48 respondents who
answered the question. Many public defenders, especially those in statewide
offices and statewide appellate offices, desire hardware upgrades to equip
every staff member with a computer, to allow faster Internet processing, or to
provide attorneys with laptop computers in the courtrooms. Several
respondents reported needing hardware upgrades to ensure Y2K compliance
or to match the courtroom presentation capabilities of district attorneys in their
jurisdiction. Those programs without good case-tracking systems tended to
respond that poor data reporting was a problem in their offices and that more
staff training was needed. Finally, many public defenders without integrated
criminal justice systems reported that they needed better access to court data.

Part 4. Survey Results: Use of Technology in Litigation Support, Case
Tracking, and Information Integration Across Agencies

Litigation Support
The survey asked public defender offices for information about how they use
litigation support technologies. These technologies include investigative and
evidentiary tools (still photography, video cameras, etc.), emerging in-court
technology such as video conferencing and multimedia presentation equipment,
as well as everyday office equipment such as fax machines, voice- and e-mail, 
and personal computers.

All 52 survey respondents reported using fax machines, and nearly all reported
using e-mail (94 percent) and the Internet (81 percent). A full 69 percent 
of offices use individual voice-mail accounts, and 33 percent have a general
office voice-mail system.

Thirty-six (69 percent) of the offices that responded reported that they have a
1:1 attorney-to-computer ratio, and 10 (19 percent) reported a 2:1 ratio (table
5). Six offices (12 percent) reported a 3:1 ratio or worse. Support staff fared
much better: 44 offices (85 percent) reported a 1:1 staff-to-computer ratio and
7 offices (13 percent) reported a 2:1 ratio.

Forty-five of the respondents (87 percent) reported having a traditional law
library. In addition, 42 (81 percent) use an online legal research service, 40 (71
percent) have state laws on CD-ROM, and 29 (56 percent) have federal laws
on CD-ROM (table 6).

Table 7 shows public defender use of in-court technologies. Table 8 presents
data on defender offices' use of investigation technologies.

Case Tracking
Forty-four of the 52 defender offices responding to the survey reported that
they use an automated case-tracking system. Only 11.5 percent of respondents
reported that they rely solely on a manual system. Four of the 21 offices in Tier
1, or those serving populations numbering more than 1 million, reported that
they do not use an automated case-tracking system, the highest proportion of
any category.

The survey also sought information on whether each office's attorneys have
access to its case-tracking system (table 9). More than 90 percent of offices
responding reported that they provide attorneys access, and 65 percent
reported that they provide access from attorneys' desktop computers.

In addition, the survey asked the respondents to estimate how often attorneys
consult information on the case management system. Table 10 shows that the
majority of attorneys (76 percent) in the programs surveyed access information
on a daily basis.

Survey participants were asked whether attorneys and support staff were
trained to use the case management system. In 78 percent of the public
defender programs that answered, both attorneys and support staff received
training. Yet only 34 percent of respondents reported that their systems are
being fully used. Respondents in programs serving populations numbering more
than 1 million (Tier 1 programs) felt the least satisfaction with their systems
(23.5 percent).

Next, defender offices were asked how their case management system has
affected the quality of representation they have provided over the past 5 years.
Of the 33 survey participants who answered the question, nearly half (48.5
percent) felt that their system had made a substantial improvement, and 42
percent felt that the system had made some improvement. Nine percent felt that
a computerized case management system has made little or no improvement to
the quality of the services they provide to clients.

Public defender satisfaction levels were assessed in six areas of case tracking.
These areas were processing speed, user-friendliness, reliability/accuracy,
compatibility with public defender practice, accessibility, and enhancement of
productivity. Each respondent was asked to rate his or her office's satisfaction
level (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor) for each category. The results
are presented in table 11. 

Overall, public defenders rated their case-tracking systems as "very good,"
particularly in reliability/accuracy, compatibility with public defender practice,
accessibility, and enhancement of productivity. They rated their systems as
"good" in processing speed and user-friendliness. 

Information Integration Across Agencies
Of the 52 public defender programs that responded to the survey, 60 percent
indicated that the jurisdiction they represent uses some sort of shared,
integrated criminal justice information system. Nine of these jurisdictions share
information on a statewide basis, 16 on a countywide basis, and 6 by judicial
district. In 25 of the 31 jurisdictions with shared information, public defenders
are included as a part of the system.

Public defender access to information in these integrated systems varies greatly.
Defendant arrest records were available to 56 percent of respondents with
access to an integrated system, while 84 percent indicated that disposition
records were available electronically. Three respondents reported that their
systems provide access to warrant information. Slightly more than half of the
respondents have access to general biographical information of defendants
through their systems, and 92 percent have access to court docket and
calendaring information. Jail rosters are available to 61 percent (19 of 31) of
the systems reported, 35 percent (11 of 31) of the systems share department of
motor vehicles information, and 16 percent (5 of 31) share defendant tax,
property, and asset information.

Eleven respondents use integrated criminal justice information systems that
house shared data within a single database. This means that these jurisdictions
share a commonly accessible database that assembles all information about a
criminal case step-by-step, from arrest through sentencing or probation, and
stores the data in one location. The other 14 programs that use integrated
criminal justice information systems not located on a single database have
multiple databases. Under this scenario, each criminal justice agency has its
own database, which other agencies can access to retrieve data. 

Of the 25 respondents that reported using an integrated system, 36 percent do
not share any information originating in the public defender offices with any
other criminal justice agency. Of the remaining 16 systems, 56 percent share
attorney-of-record information, and 13 percent share basic information about
defendants and witnesses. Seven of the 25 respondents reported that they have
the ability to decide which agencies may access database contents and what
types of information are accessible.

As shown in table 12, the majority of offices rating their satisfaction with
integrated information systems believe that their system has improved the quality
of their representation. Many stated that the improvement was substantial. 

Overall, public defenders were less satisfied with their criminal justice integrated
information system than they were with their internal case management systems.

IX. For More Information

To receive more information on the initiatives described in this report, contact
the following individuals or organizations:

Marin County, California
Joseph L. Spaeth, Public Defender
Office of the Public Defender, Marin County
Hall of Justice
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 139
San Rafael, CA 94903-4166
Phone: 415-499-6321
Fax: 415-499-6898
World Wide Web: marin2.marin.org/mc/pd/index.html

Orange County, Florida
Joseph W. DuRocher, Public Defender
Ninth Judicial Circuit Public Defender
435 North Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32801
Phone: 407-836-4800
Fax: 407-836-2196

Michigan State Appellate Defender Office
James R. Neuhard, State Appellate Defender
State Appellate Defender Office, State of Michigan
645 Griswold, Penobscot Building,
Suite 3300
Detroit, MI 48226
Phone: 313-256-9833
Fax: 313-965-0372
World Wide Web: www.sado.org

Legal Aid Society Bronx County, New York
Irwin Shaw, Attorney-in-Charge
Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division
1020 Grand Concourse
Bronx, NY 10451
Phone: 718-579-3158
Fax: 718-588-2611

Rhode Island State Public Defender
Stephen Nugent, Chief Public Defender
Office of the Public Defender
State of Rhode Island
100 North Main Street, Fourth Floor
Providence, RI 02903
Phone: 401-222-3492
Fax: 401-222-3289

Knoxville, Tennessee
Mark Stephens, District Public Defender
Public Defender for the Sixth Judicial District
1209 Euclid Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37601-0996
Phone: 423-594-6120
Fax: 423-594-6169

West Virginia Public Defender Services
John A. Rogers, Executive Director
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Building 3, Room 330
Charleston, WV 25305
Phone: 304-558-3905
Fax: 304-558-1098

The Spangenberg Group
Robert L. Spangenberg, President
1001 Watertown Street
West Newton, MA 02465
Phone: 617-969-3820
Fax: 617-965-3966
E-mail: tsg@spangenberggroup.com

For additional information on BJA grants and programs, contact:

Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
1-800-688-4252
World Wide Web: www.ncjrs.org
Clearinghouse staff are available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. 
to 7 p.m. eastern time. Ask to be placed on the BJA mailing list.

U.S. Department of Justice Response Center
1-800-421-6770 or 202-307-1480
Response Center staff are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 
5 p.m. eastern time.

----------------------------

Bureau of Justice Assistance Information
General Information
Callers may contact the U.S. Department of Justice Response Center for
general information or specific needs, such as assistance in submitting grant
applications and information on training. To contact the Response Center, call
1-800-421-6770 or write to 1100 Vermont Avenue NW., Washington, DC
20005.

Indepth Information

For more indepth information about BJA, its programs, and its funding
opportunities, requesters can call the BJA Clearinghouse. The BJA
Clearinghouse, a component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service
(NCJRS), shares BJA program information with state and local agencies and
community groups across the country. Information specialists are available to
provide reference and referral services, publication distribution, participation
and support for conferences, and other networking and outreach activities. The
Clearinghouse can be reached by:

--Mail 
P.O. Box 6000 
Rockville, MD 20849-6000

--Visit
2277 Research Boulevard 
Rockville, MD 20850

--Telephone 
1-800-688-4252 
Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. eastern time

--Fax 
301-519-5212

--Fax on Demand 
1-800-688-4252

--BJA Home Page 
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

--NCJRS World Wide Web 
www.ncjrs.org

--E-mail 
askncjrs@ncjrs.org

--JUSTINFO Newsletter 
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