COVID-19 impacts the team at KCK: in-person court processes
As more cities begin shifting government services from in-person to online, some service areas seem more opportune for transformation than others. On the surface, courts seem too dependent upon live interactions to make a good case for digital services.
What they didn’t know was that a global pandemic would soon test their ability to reassess policies and respond with speed and effectiveness. When city-wide COVID-19 restrictions went into effect, the Court had to close its doors to in-person service. This meant closing off hundreds of daily visitors.
“We had never closed before, except for a half-day training. Our office sees a constant flow of traffic,” said Crystal Sprague, Court Administrator for KCK Municipal Court. “When the restrictions took effect, we realized we’d have to stop court hearings. Everything looked different. We needed to make a strategic change but do it quickly.”
Reimagining access to justice in times of crisis
Without a way to quickly adapt justice processes to an online channel, hundreds of people would be left without a way to resolve their court-related business. Having OpenForms at hand, Sprague knew she could move swiftly to work with judges to implement policy changes and inform the public.
“As a department head, I now can work with our judges to implement policy changes in minutes, not days or even months. I could build a form in OpenForms and make it go live on our website tomorrow,” she said.
Preparing and responding with OpenForms
During the initial days of the COVID-19 emergency response, KCK initiated two new municipal court services, powered by OpenForms:
1. Online Traffic Diversion Form
Ordinarily, most defendants could appear in the court, pleading guilty to a lesser charge (i.e. no use of turn signal) and pay double the fine to have their case dismissed in order to avoid any impact on their driving record. This process required a court appearance. By using OpenForms, citizens are now able to avoid a court appearance by applying online with the appropriate form and pleads to certain terms. OpenForms Workflow allows the prosecutor to approve or decline the plea before the form moves to the court clerk for entering a recommendation before notifying the defendant. This policy change makes fine payments easier to manage for defendants and staff, and eliminates the need to schedule multiple court dates. A process that once took days and weeks now takes about 3-4 hours.
“We saw 48 forms submitted in one month,” said Sprague. “That saved us two physical court hearings, which is a huge cost saving.”
2. Information Submission to the Courts
Many defendants often must appear in court simply to provide proof of documentation, such as a driver’s license, insurance card, or other item they didn’t have at the time of ticketing. Complicating things more, until the documentation is provided, the defendant can’t interact online with the Court because of the appearance requirement.
OpenForms provided the tools to create a document allowing defendants to submit information through the Court website. Prosecutors can then move the decision on the case forward faster, without the defendant having to appear in court.
Though the Court could not have predicted how the pandemic crisis would impact their operations, it ultimately allowed court staff to think strategically about how to provide better access to justice.
