The case management system used by the McLean County jail, courts, state’s attorney’s office and public defender’s office will shut down in December after collecting county records for almost three decades.
Trial court administrator William Scanlon said at the quarterly Criminal Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC] meeting that all of that data, including 28 years of booking photos and documents, is being loaded into a new system set to go live Dec. 7.
The current E-Justice System [EJS], a homegrown records management system implemented in 1998, will be replaced by Journal Technologies’ eJustice suite of products: eProsecutor, eDefender, eProbation and eCourt.
It's the third in a trio of record system overhauls in McLean County funded by countywide mental health and public safety sales tax revenue, which moves the county fully into cloud-based record keeping that better communicates with other county and state agencies.
Law Enforcement switched to a vendor called Caliber, which has had hiccups since first being implemented five years ago. Bloomington and Normal police have since bailed on the county's Caliber system, choosing Axon for record keeping. Both departments use Axon-brand body-worn cameras and other services. The Sheriff's Department also has a beefy contract with Axon, which supplies tasers, in-car cameras, training tools and body-worn cameras for patrol and jail correctional officers.
On the courts side, the new system’s purpose, Scanlon said, is to integrate both e-filing and the citation system with the new records system the jail and juvenile detention center use, then feed that data back out to law enforcement agencies and the jail.
“It’s quite the undertaking from a technical side and a development side,” Scanlon said.
Scanlon said trainers from each office will undergo 8-10 hours of training next week before teaching end users. Test scenarios have also been run to troubleshoot before the data transfer happens.
“It’s a considerable amount of resources being devoted over the next 6-7 weeks to make sure this happens, and I’m sure it won’t be without a problem as every software implementation has its own individual problems,” Scanlon said.
Even with possible hitches during the data load, Scanlon said the county is confident it can open for business Dec. 7: taking payments, seeing people in court and managing people through the jail.
A judge returns
As the courts said goodbye to Chief Judge Casey Costigan, who retired Oct. 16, a familiar face returned to the dais at the CJCC.
Judge Mark Fellheimer took over as chief judge following Costigan's retirement. Fellheimer has been a judge in the 11th Judicial Circuit since 2008 and served as chief judge from 2018 to 2022.
As Fellheimer reenters his role, he said he’s grown to appreciate how important the council is to effectively administer justice.
“I’ve always believed that the real value of the council goes beyond any particular issue that we address,” Fellheimer said.
Fellheimer said the relationships built among the judiciary, law enforcement and county officials at the council’s meetings are just as important as the solutions they try to develop.
“We sort of take it for granted at times that we just have a meeting and talk about things and move on to the next meeting,” Fellheimer said. “We bring the judiciary together, the sheriff’s department, state’s attorney’s office, public defenders, local law enforcement, county administration. Just bringing them together is an accomplishment.”
Fellheimer swore in Judge Sarah Duffy on Monday to fill out the remainder of Costigan’s term, which runs through Dec. 7.
Duffy, who is running unopposed on the November ballot, was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court. She resigned her associate judge position to take the seat, leaving McLean County down one judge.
Fellheimer said he expects someone to be in place by the end of the year or shortly after.
State public defender office coming, county office stays
McLean County Public Defender Ron Lewis provided an update on the implementation of a new law installing a statewide public defender.
For counties in the 11th judicial circuit, which each have a full-time public defender, he said it's not likely to change operations by much.
The Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation Act, or FAIR Act, follows a study commissioned by the Illinois Supreme Court. Lewis said the study found Illinois was one of seven states with no statewide system for public defense oversight or resources, and that it relied too heavily on judges.
“In Illinois, the provision of public defender services has really been pushed down to the county level,” Lewis said.
The act establishes an Office of the State Public Defender, led by a state public defender chosen through a newly appointed commission. The office will be advised by a public defender advisory board, a public defender advisory group and a juvenile working group.
Lewis said the biggest local change comes when a county’s chief public defender position opens. Instead of circuit judges picking the next public defender, a local committee with members chosen equally by the state public defender and the circuit’s chief judge will make recommendations to the commission.
Future chief public defenders will serve 10-year terms and can reapply. Those already in the position remain until there is an opening in their county.
Starting Jan. 1, the state office will also take over distributing state funding to public defender offices. Lewis said that money is meant to supplement what counties already provide, not replace it.
For the first two years, Lewis said, the state office will be gathering data, establishing policies and determining what other counties need.
“We remain county employees. We remain under a county budget and essentially business operations as usual,” Lewis said. “The county structure is still here and was never intended to be replaced by this act.”
Narrowing in on recidivism rates
Illinois State University sociologist Frank Beck told the council further study on recidivism rates in McLean County is in the works, with both a quantitative and qualitative approach.
Beck said the council’s executive committee wants to analyze recidivism beyond second or third dispositions, with a focus on re-arrest rates.
“The records from the jail, and the courts, and law enforcement arrests are integrated, and a data set has been created to do the analysis,” Beck said.
Beck said the study spans specialty courts, emerging adults and youth programs.
Natasha Tchaikovsky, a graduate student working alongside Beck, said the team has received agency approval for the program evaluation.
“In progress we are currently conducting interviews and focus groups with peer support specialists, current and former, of the drug court and the recovery court,” Tchaikovsky said.
Tchaikovsky said the next step will be analyzing those findings to develop better tools and instruments for collecting data from current and former specialty court participants.
Beck said he plans to update the executive committee with numbers before presenting them to the full council at its next quarterly meeting in January.
Summer jobs program
An expansion of the county's job readiness program will roll out next summer for teens ages 16-19.
Scanlon said the program will serve 15 to 24 young people and offer a variety of life skills, on-the-job training and connections with future employers.
For participants near graduation or who have their GED, Scanlon said the goal is “a transition into more full employment, or for those students who are returning to school in the fall to have that connection that they may have some opportunities for work development in the following years.”
Rather than build the program around a few employers as in the past, the county will issue a request for information to community organizations to run it, opening the door to opportunities it may not have considered.
Scanlon said the timeline is tentative as logistics get ironed out. A draft request is expected by mid-November, with responses due in January and a decision on which organization receives funding in mid-February.
Scanlon said students can sign up in March and April, with employment beginning in late May or early June.
