Bridging the court technology gap: panel searches for best integrated statewide model.

If Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Barbara Pariente wants to send an e-mail to all trial judges across the state, forget it.

More than half of Florida's counties are not connected to a central court network.

In just the Second Judicial Circuit, Chief Judge Charlie Francis can't send one e-mail to all of his judges in six counties.

"I was terribly shocked, as a newcomer, at the poor level of technology," Francis, chair of the Article V Technology Board, told a roomful of participants at its October 15 meeting in Tallahassee.

Two years ago, he said, some counties in Florida didn't even have dial-up connections to the Internet.

Judge Francis said he was also "shocked" to find that Dade County, the largest county, bad the "worst and oldest equipment. That surprised me. With so much volume, it does take a lot of money."

With the help of his board representing a cross-section of the computer savvy, Judge Francis hopes to bridge the court technology gap. The group plans to present a preliminary report to the legislature on January 15, and a complete report the following year. The board's next meeting is November 5 when public comment is invited.

"The bottom line is our charge on this committee is to figure out how to integrate all the various information sources out there. State attorneys, public defenders, clerks, sheriffs, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Department of Children and Families, juveniles--all have this information that judges need to act and make their decisions," Judge Francis explained.

"How do we get it together? What is the best model to use and what are the costs? That is our charge."

As he told his board, "We don't want to recreate the wheel. We just want to see what the wheel is and put it back together."

The art of the possible was presented at the meeting:

* The STAC 2000 Case Tracking System: Currently used by 11 state attorneys' offices and 10 public defenders' offices, all events and pertinent names involved in a criminal case are available on a computer screen, and the system can interface with any data base. It can even generate subpoenas for jury trial and send them via e-mail, as well as' create jury instructions. It also has a search function that could list all arrests during a certain time frame. There is no direct link to law-enforcement records, but STAC 2000 gets its data from the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS).

* Brenda Owens, chief information officer of the Florida Department of Law...