Florida Supreme Court issued the following announcement on June 24.
We are most proud of the speed with which we were able to transition the First Judicial Circuit to a remote model. Because our judges and court staff had already been through a large-scale digital transformation with the implementation of the court application processing system, better known as the CAPS judicial viewer, we had the court experience, technical skills, and innovative mindset to create new remote processes quickly.
First Judicial Circuit IT staff John Gustafson and Michael Badon set up the public Zoom room monitor for remote county arraignments in Escambia County.
In 2017, the First Judicial Circuit completed its CAPS judicial viewer installation for all judges and all case types. With the CAPS viewers, judges can access their electronic court files from anywhere and electronically sign, file, and serve court orders. With that, the circuit closed the electronic case loop with the Florida courts e-filing portal and the clerks’ case management systems (CMS), allowing attorneys and agencies to file case documents electronically via the portal and have signed orders returned to them via the portal and filed in the clerks’ CMS. The elimination of the paper case file opened the way for remote work.
Escambia County’s Remote County Arraignments is a good example of the circuit’s rapid response to quarantine measures. Partner agencies quickly agreed to create a Zoom court model that would maintain social distancing requirements and alleviate technical challenges for litigants. This model involved creating a Zoom room in the courthouse for the public to appear in person. A large monitor was placed at the front of the courtroom, and all partner agencies dial into the judge’s Zoom call. Litigants are separated and stand at the courtroom podium as normal, and the judge, clerk, state attorney, and public defender appear on the monitor from their respective offices. During the remote hearings, the judges have access to the electronic court files via their CAPS judicial viewer; the clerks have access to its case management systems; and the state attorneys and public defenders have access to their agencies’ systems.
Because we already had the CAPS viewers in place, we were able to move to the cloud, roll out the Zoom software, send out judicial instructions, and organize our partner agencies within days, which gave Chief Judge John Miller early options for meeting the Florida Supreme Court’s administrative order requirements. Since then, judges and court staff have successfully adapted to the new remote environment and have been able to keep our court system operational during these challenging times. Currently, circuit-wide, the First Judicial Circuit is doing 50 Zoom hearings per day with an average of 500 total participants in criminal, civil, juvenile delinquency, juvenile dependency, family, and drug court.
Original source can be found here.