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Sea of paperwork: Montana Supreme Court stuck in technological stone age

December 13, 2004 /

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Use a debit card in Montana and the bank has a record of it within moments.

But if you’re convicted of a felony, keepers of the state’s largest criminal database may not learn of it for 30 days. Or if you file a suit before the Montana Supreme Court, you can miss legal deadlines for weeks and no one will know.

That’s because most legal information in the state is still stored as paper documents, said Chief Justice Karla Gray, head of the Montana court system. The system makes it difficult for police officers, deputies and judges to easily share information about convictions and court proceedings and harder for the public to find out what’s going on in Montana’s courts.

"It’s Stone Age," Gray said.

By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/13/build/state/30-sea-of-paperwork.inc