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Denver District Attorney's Office
Denver, Colorado

Overview Testimonials
"We have an obligation to the citizens we serve to be technologically prepared for the future. This system takes us to the next level of managing case information. It increases our ability to track, update and access our files. It opens the door for wireless access from other locations, such as the courtroom, and will allow us to exchange vital information with our partner agencies. The bottom line is improved efficiency all the way around."
Mitchell R. Morrissey
District Attorney

June 9, 2006

The Denver District Attorney’s Office is the second judicial district in the State of Colorado to choose the JustWare | Prosecutor application for automated case management. JustWare and JusticeBroker integrated justice systems replaced a legacy/text-based, state-provided system.

Challenge

The District Attorney is the chief law enforcement officer in the City and County of Denver and is responsible for prosecuting all of the felonies, misdemeanors, and serious traffic offenses committed in the city. The DA’s mission is to "professionally and completely prosecute crimes and investigate potential crimes on behalf of the people of the State of Colorado and in doing so, do justice, advocate victims’ rights and advise and consult in the deterrence and prevention of crime; to ensure the open, evenhanded and humane administration of justice."

In addition to basic case management, the office also needed to convert and maintain legacy data and to report to the state-wide Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (CICJIS) via the Colorado District Attorney Council’s legacy case management program, Blackstone.

The DA’s Office selected New Dawn Technologiesas its district attorney case management provider in July 2006. They needed to be live with JustWare by February 2007, less than seven months later.

Solution

The Second Judicial District of Colorado (Denver District Attorney’s Office) purchased JustWare by New Dawn’s Public Finance program and went live, on January 22, 2007, with New Dawn Technologies’ JustWare and JusticeBroker integrated justice systems solutions for its case management and criminal justice data integration needs. 

The Denver District Attorney’s Office employs approximately 60 attorneys and 150 other staff including investigators, legal secretaries and victim advocates. They use JustWare to automate 14 distinct divisions, including: an Appellate Division that briefs and argues cases through the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court; a County Court Division that handles a large workload—more than 14,000 cases each year—including alcohol-related traffic offenses and domestic violence cases in addition to all of the misdemeanor case filings; a District Court Division that handles all felony cases, except those routed to specialized crime units; and a Juvenile Diversion program that works with first time juvenile offenders to divert them from a formal judicial process and provide various behavior, family and community services to reduce the chance that the juvenile will commit crime in the future. The office also has a drug unit, a family violence unit, an early intervention program for domestic violence, and a juvenile prosecution division.

New Dawn electronically converted historical data from Blackstone, a legacy case management software application. David Gines, head of the data conversion team, says "Denver’s management is very detail-oriented. They actively involved themselves in the conversion process. They caught all of the discrepancies very early on. That’s what it takes to make a data conversion successful."

The office is actively exchanging electronic data with other agencies in their area via JusticeBroker. Their office regularly imports misdemeanor case data from the county court. In the first week alone, almost two thousand cases were imported from the county court database into the office’s new JustWare database, without any manual data entry. Denver District Attorney’s office also automatically exports police officer subpoenas to the Denver Police Department. Creager says, "With JustWare, Denver is now a leader in law enforcement data sharing."

JustWare’s open and agency accessible Microsoft SQL Server database, minimal assistance from New Dawn staff, a skilled outside consultant and using IBM’s WebSphere® solution, JustWare reports case and event information is to the Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (CICJIS) system via the Colorado District Attorney Councils, legacy system, Blackstone.

Result

"We have an obligation to the citizens we serve to be technologically prepared for the future. This system takes us to the next level of managing case information. It increases our ability to track, update and access our files. It opens the door for wireless access from other locations, such as the courtroom, and will allow us to exchange vital information with our partner agencies," stated Mitchell R. Morrissey, Denver District Attorney, "The bottom line is improved efficiency all the way around."

"The case management needs of the Denver District Attorney’s Office are unique in many ways. The JustWare program has the flexibility we need to perform and manage those unique needs. This technology allows us to better serve the public and law enforcement agencies we are involved with," stated Mark E. Creager, Denver District Attorney’s Director Information Services.


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