Dec 21, 2008 12:05 pm US/Central
Court Error Leads To 15,000 Overlooked Cases
ST. PAUL (AP) ―
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The 15,000 cases make up about 2 percent of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 cases that have passed through the court system in the past five years. (File)
CBS
Software problems and human error led to about 15,000 court cases since 2003 not getting transferred to the state Department of Public Safety agency that assigns license suspensions for certain infractions.
That means it's likely that not all the people who were supposed to have their licenses suspended for serious infractions received the punishment.
It isn't clear statewide how many license suspension cases were affected by the lapses that would have taken place during the 4 1/2 months in which county court clerks converted open case files to a new statewide computer network, the Minnesota Court Information System.
All 87 counties are now part of the system. But some of the accidental passes some motorists might have received during the past five years are now being discovered with punishments finally being applied.
"Some of these charges are very serious," wrote Kay Pedretti, state director of court services, in an e-mail last week to court administrators across Minnesota. "There will likely be defendants upset and wondering why they are getting notices of suspension or revocation or insurance increases long after their cases were disposed."
In Dakota County, court administrators went through nearly 21,000 driving-related convictions last week and found more than 200 drivers whose cases should have been sent to the public safety department's Division of Driver and Vehicle Service for possible license suspension.
Neighboring counties have been told to stop their reviews while state court officials work on a solution with the Department of Public Safety.
John Kostouros, a spokesman for the state court system, said officials hope to have a better understanding of the situation within weeks.
"We believe many cases may have been reported manually by local courts (by fax), but we won't know that until we compare records with DVS," Kostouros said.
The 15,000 cases make up about 2 percent of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 cases that have passed through the court system in the past five years, Pedretti said.
About half of the conversion problems were caused by data entry mistakes or other human errors, said Jerry Winter, district administrator for the judicial district that covers Dakota County and six other neighboring counties.
A software patch intended to fix one problem ended up causing more reporting errors, and some overlooked cases included those in which offenders had been given stays of adjudication but later violated court terms and were convicted, Winter said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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