WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Kanas courts are in their second week of operating by paper. The statewide electronic system used for many of the courts’ functions remains offline following a security breach earlier this month. Yet to be revealed is how the breach happened. The Kansas judicial branch said it’s examining what happened and working to bring the system back up. There’s no timetable for when that’ll happen.
Meanwhile, 12 News looked into the continued impact the situation is causing as courts have to operate as they did decades ago. The court management system is meant to provide a centralized statewide place for court functions that include filing documents, searching case records and processing court payments. None of the functions are happening with the system, but courts remain open, relying on paper.
“Really, very inconvenient for I think everyone. I mean we all can adjust, we can get through it,” said Wichita defense attorney Charley O’Hara with the O’Hara and O’Hara Law Office in Wichita.
Most of the Kansas judicial system has been analog. O’Hara said the disruption has led to prosecutors and judges asking him for the next curt date, court documents, etc… since the security breach forced the state’s Odyssey Court Management System offline.
“[Tuesday] I was in court and we had to get a copy of the warrant against my client because we weren’t able to obtain it. So the judge had to go get it, hand it to us,” O’Hara said.
In a statement, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said the interface his office has is how it tracks hearing dates and times. For 2022, Bennett said his office had more than 17,250 criminal case hearings. That comes out to about 70 per day. This system has become a vital part of the criminal justice system’s operation and so far, there’s no clear explanation for what led to the system going offline.
“It just disturbed me that for whatever reason, people don’t tell us what’s going on,” O’Hara said. “We were originally told it would be two weeks. Now we’re told it’s going to be two weeks, and maybe after two weeks, it will be two weeks more.”
Since 2019, the Kansas judicial branch has been rolling out the Odyssey system from Texas-based Tyler Technologies to a create a centralized platform for the state. It hasn’t been without delays and challenges. In 2021, the judicial branch withheld payment to Tyler Technologies because of issues with some of the features.
“We put our stake in the ground by telling them we’re not going to do any more installs, and by not paying them, saying that you need to fix this,” Office of Judicial Administration Chief Information Officer Kelly O’Brien said.
Earlier this year, lawmakers asked what would happen if a situation occurred like what’s currently happening.
“What happens when the system’s down? Are they completely at a standstill, much like other systems?” Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said.
Members of Kansas’ judicial branch said plans were in place to address some of the issues that could arise.
“Redundancy built into the system. We continue to ty to improve that,” O’Brien said.
The 18th Judicial District, serving Sedgwick County was only added to the Odyssey system in August. Before that, it relied on its own system. The only Kansas county not impacted by the security breach and system shutdown is Johnson County as its migration to the new system hasn’t yet happened.
Bennett said the Odyssey system is where the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office can see orders filed by judges that someone has served their jail time, to be released on reduced bond or to be transferred to the Kansas Department of Corrections. This outage also manes people can’t file for marriage licenses or protective orders online.
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