The statewide court case management system, which spans criminal, civil and district courts, will remain down at least for another week, according to the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
The system, which went down Nov. 4 after “unauthorized activity” was detected, typically helps organize local case management, calendars and workflows across the 39 counties in the state.
AOC stated in a Facebook post Tuesday, Nov. 12, that no court or personal data had been “accessed, altered or removed during the unauthorized activity that was detected.”
Since the shutdown, people have not been able to access electronic court record searches or electronic filings. Payments and filings have had to be done in person at county clerk’s offices.
Skagit and Whatcom counties have been handling the shutdown in stride.
In Skagit County, the clerk’s office is “going ‘old-school,’” said Christine Luvera, chief deputy clerk.
“Currently, we are manually creating spreadsheets of case hearing types and court dates to track for calendaring purposes,” she said, adding that issuing arrest and bench warrants has been more challenging because of the 24-hour timeline requirement.
No new data or documents from new court filings and hearings have been added to the online system because of the outage.
In Whatcom County, the clerk’s office is experiencing a backlog of filings, docketing and financial processes because of the outage, County Clerk Raylene King said.
However, because of the Whatcom County Prosecutor Office’s internal case management system — which is separate from the statewide management system — there’s been some assistance on the criminal court side.
“Our courts have not been able to make calendars,” said Whatcom County Prosecutor Eric Richey on Wednesday, Nov. 6 during a Whatcom County Council meeting. “But we’ve been able to make them for them with our case management system. So we’re out in front taking care of that issue.”
In the meantime, people can still access physical court records at the Whatcom Clerk’s Office in person and the office continues to process emergency orders and court programs. The Clerk’s Office remains open during regular business hours.
King said AOC was hoping it could restore the case management system by Monday, Nov. 18.
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
