Summary
If information about a person's criminal history is not available to a judge making, in some cases, life or death decisions about jail time or bail conditions, the information may as well not exist. That's why it is distressing to Gov. John Baldacci and others that efforts to computerize the state's criminal history records are progressing so slowly. While there are many reasons for the lack of progress, the governor's restated commitment to fix the problem, coupled with a domestic violence task force's focus on the inadequacy of the records system, should speed the process.
Only 10 percent of Maine's criminal records are entered into the state's two-year-old computer database, a recent Portland Press Herald investigation revealed. That leaves more than 400,000 records on paper stored away in local courthouses and at the Public Safety Department in Augusta. Clerks may spend weeks pulling information from rows of file folders to compile a single criminal history even though the law mandates that a defendant have a hearing within 48 hours. This leaves prosecutors to make initial court appearances armed with fragmentary knowledge about a defendant's past. Worse, judges make decisions based on partial information.See the full content of this document
Extract
Courting Disaster
For Lisa Deprez, the lack of information was fatal. The Portland woman was found unconscious in her apartment on May 13. Sh...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
