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August 15, 2008
Travis County spends $10,000 for courthouse lobby LCD screens
Visitors to Travis County’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center this week will notice a new addition in the lobby — eight, 40-inch LCD television screens mounted near the elevators.
The screens, hung like those that track departures and arrivals in airports, will soon show docket information for the misdemeanor and felony courts that are housed in the building, said Nolan Martin, technology manager for Travis County’s civil and criminal courts.
The screens will replace paper printouts — one for each courtroom — of that day’s cases that are tacked up in the lobby, Martin said.
The Samsung flat screens cost $978 each and while the county has not yet been billed for installation, the projected installation cost was $2,156 — for a total project cost of about $9,980, according to Martin.
The screens will list, in alphabetical order, the names of defendants due in court that day, the time of his or her hearing, the court and the floor of that court.
This docket information in alphabetical order is currently available in printouts at a lobby information booth and in the district clerk’s office.
Martin said in an e-mail that during project planning, county employees determined that “many visitors to the center do not know or do not have the key information required to use the posted paper dockets, particularly the assigned court number.”
“As a result, visitors typically cycle through each of the posted dockets (currently for 13 courts), causing traffic congestion within the lobby as well as potential delays (when individuals are late to court).”
State District Judge Bob Perkins, the county’s longest tenured judge, said he does not recall giving his input on whether the new system is necessary. Martin said the funding came from the auditor’s office and was approved by the Commissioners Court.
Perkins said he is not sure how much the screens will help the administration of justice. He said sometimes people show up to only misdemeanor court when they also have a case set in felony court and vice versa. When someone doesn’t show up for court they are ordered to be re-arrested, and that costs the county money, he said.
Is this money well spent?
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