Dallas, TX (July 14, 2008) – Orion Communications, a provider of Public Safety software, has been contracted by the City of Newark to deploy its patent pending CourtNotify Subpoena Management Solution. CourtNotify will be used by the City to electronically distribute court issued subpoenas; as well as track court attendance for the Newark Police Department and all users employed by the City. Thanks to CourtNotify, information sharing will be enabled between the Newark PD, the Courts, and all City agencies -- resulting in significant cost savings and improved efficiencies.
The current process used to route approximately 4,000 weekly subpoenas has resulted in high administrative overhead and costly overtime as a result of manual constraints. Notifications about rescheduled or dismissed cases are often not received in time by officers to appear. And officer schedules are not taken into consideration, resulting in increased costs and delays.
With CourtNotify, court agency users will access online tools to automate notifications and track witnesses acknowledge responses. Clerks will be able reset and confirm new dates in real-time when cases or dockets are rescheduled. And the ability to use agency forms that include official Newark signatures and seals will be included.
Newark police agency users will have the ability to electronically receive their notifications in real-time using web tools or email. Automated escalated alerts will ensure that required agency witnesses attend scheduled cases and that court clerks are informed about emergency situations. Day-of-court attendance will be tracked and made available for unprecedented, bottom-line statistical reporting.
“We’ve found that subpoena management has certain traits that are universal throughout the country,” states Orion President Leslie DeLatte. “Our solution solves these problems because it is an enterprise approach that produces cost savings for all agencies – Police Departments, Sheriff Offices, Courts, Prosecutors, and Public Defenders.
Current manual solutions are very silo-based -- with the courts focused on case management and sending subpoenas; and public safety agencies focused on records management and having to control many different aspects of their personnel. For the subpoena process to work optimally, this information needs to be shared. CourtNotify bridges this gap.”
The CourtNotify deployment is scheduled to begin in August, 2008 and is planned to go live in early 2009.
