UPDATE 4-30-24 Noon
Clerk Of Court Henry Gupton Said Day 1 Of ‘Odyssey’ Went Smoothly on WIZS Radio’s The Local Skinny!
The clerk of court staff put in a full day Sunday – 9 to 5 – to make sure the transition from paper to paperless went as smoothly as it possibly could, and Vance County Clerk of Superior Court Henry Gupton said he thought things went very well on Monday – Day 1 – of the online data management system.
Gupton said he was happy and proud of the court staff, and he predicted that things would smooth out as everyone gets used to the Enterprise Justice system, also called Odyssey. Odyssey replaces paper processes with online access uploads and transactions. Features include online citation and ticket payments, as well as a free search portal to display court records and case events.
“The system is slow, we’ve got to get used to it,” he said on Tuesday’s segment of The Local Skinny! “It’s going to be very beneficial,” Gupton added.
But for the next 10 weeks or so, it’s going to probably be a slog.
Most of the work will fall to the clerk’s office at first, he said. “If we all give it time and we’re all patient, we’ll be fine.”
Gupton said he’s going to take part in a meeting later this week to discuss equipment at the detention center that could be used to provide detainees a virtual first appearance, which could ease sheriff’s officers of the burden to transporting detainees to and from court.
**Previous update below as well as additional audio.
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**UPDATE 4-29-24 Noon
Vance County is among 10 counties switching over to eCourts today, putting an end to paper files and transitioning to a cloud-hosted digital case management system.
The Enterprise Justice system, also called Odyssey, replaces paper processes with online access uploads and transactions. Features include online citation and ticket payments, as well as a free search portal to display court records and case events.
As Enterprise Justice expands statewide, millions more North Carolinians gain mobile access to their courthouse, saving time and providing transparency, according to information from the N.C. Office of the Administrative Courts.
Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties are in Track 4 of the statewide rollout. There are two more groups of counties to go live in 2024, and the process should be completed by the end of 2025.
But in an April 15 work session of county commissioners, Vance County Sheriff Curtis Brame said he and other sheriffs across the state are less enthusiastic about the rollout.
“It’s going to slow down our court system,” Brame told commissioners. “Nobody likes it.” Brame said a typical court day in Vance County may have 300 names on the docket. Odyssey would reduce that number to 50, Brame said.
“Enterprise Justice has accepted over 600,000 electronic filings and supports tens of thousands of daily searches for digital court records in North Carolina’s largest population centers and five counties, jurisdictions serving nearly three million people,” said NCAOC Director Ryan Boyce.
Preparations and walkthroughs for each track of the eCourts transition begin months in advance to train court officials and the public on new technologies and processes, install improved network infrastructure in courthouses, customize programming integrations, and migrate case event data and court records from mainframe indexes and paper to a dynamic cloud-hosted platform.
In addition to electronic filing and records searches, the eCourts suite of applications also includes the already statewide eWarrants and Enforcement Mobile platforms, which integrate law enforcement processes with the court system, and Guide & File, a tool that helps self-represented users create and electronically file common legal actions through automated interviews. Statewide, more than 36,000 registered eWarrants users have issued 1.2 million criminal processes since the eCourts application for law enforcement replaced older systems in July 2022.
A large network of IT and software systems teams from NCAOC supports the eCourts transition through training, on-site assistance, remote monitoring and help desk response. Several eCourts platforms already operate statewide, including eWarrants, Enforcement Mobile, and a dual-form of Guide & File.
The NCAOC estimates that more than 2.3 million sheets of paper have been saved during the first two phases of eCourts by transitioning five counties to electronic filing and records access over a ten-month period. Historically, roughly 30 million pieces of paper were added to court files each year in North Carolina. The historic transition from paper court records to digital files is also shifting data storage from old mainframe technology to cloud hosting and storage, allowing NCAOC to retire outdated onsite application hosting and storage infrastructure while improving cybersecurity and online accessibility long-term.