August 16, 2010
Courts Employ Technology To Get Things Done
by Carolyn Heinze
|
|
When the Minnesota Supreme Court decided to upgrade their courtrooms, they looked to
Minneapolis-based audiovisual integrator, MSpace, to integrate Vaddio camera systems
into Courtroom 300. Courtroom 300 is the larger of two courtrooms used in the Minnesota
Supreme Court for video recording/streaming all sessions to the Internet and local public
television station, KTCA in St. Paul. MSpace upgraded the court’s video system with the
Vaddio ProductionVIEW FX switcher and three WallVIEW PRO 300 PTZ camera systems.
| |
It’s not surprising that courthouses
are struggling to achieve more, or
at least stay on top of things, with
fewer resources. Over the last couple
of years, courts have undergone considerable
cost-cutting measures, especially
when it comes to personnel.
Larry Heilman, president of the
Topeka, KS-based systems integration
firm Smith Audio Visual,
recounts that some states have cut
their court budgets by as much as 20
to 30 percent, targeting clerks, assistants,
and court reporters. “In many
cases, the court reporters are retiring,
and they’re not getting people
to replace them,” he said. Court construction
is down both at the federal
and state levels, and many facilities
close their doors for one business day
a week to control expenses. Heilman noted that this is particularly common
in the civil arena.
While Smith Audio Visual, which
also manufactures its own digital
recording system, 1TouchDigital, hasn’t noted a decrease in sales, the
company has had to become more
flexible in devising how customers
submit payment. “We are looking
for ways to finance purchases,” Heilman
explained. “We have some plans
in place, and we are offering them
to courts in a way so that they can
make payments.” These plans include
leasing outright, or purchasing via a
lease-to-own program. “If they can’t
have a court reporter, they’ve got to
record somehow, some way. A lot of
courts either buy a court reporting
system, or they’re going to close their
courthouse.”
Video systems also respond to
the need to drive cases through with
fewer employees. For example, it’s
much more cost-effective if a defendant’s
first court appearance is conducted
via videoconference. “They
can put them into a room with an
officer, and that officer does not have
to transport them,” Heilman said.
This is especially practical when the
distance between the detention center
and the court is great. “In many
cases, they will have to drive up to
an hour-and-a-half, one way, from the housing and back, a three-hour
round trip just to get the defendant
in front of the judge for a five-minute
appearance,” Heilman illustrated.
“We ask: ‘What are your costs for
man hours and expenses related to
travel?’” Oftentimes, he added, the
ROI on a basic desktop videoconferencing
system is achieved in the
equivalent of three trips.
In the audio realm, courts are now
requiring that the sound from each
microphone in the room be recorded
on a separate channel. “There is a big
increase in the request for multi-track
recording in courtrooms rather than
just a big MP3 file, for example,”
said Barry Luz, systems applications
specialist at Bosch Communications
Systems. With a large MP3 file, transcription
is tedious: When one wants
to zero in on, say, just the judge’s
microphone, it’s sometimes necessary
to listen to an hour of audio
between each time the judge speaks.
With multi-track recording systems
that feature coding to let users know
which audio is assigned to which mic,
users can go back and listen to any
single microphone.
|
|
At the Johnson County Courts in Olathe, KS, the Judge’s view includes a video conferencing monitor and an AMX touchscreen connected to
the customized 1Touch Digital 8-channel audio recording system and AV control system. The courtrooms use videoconferencing integrated
by Smith Audio Visual extensively for first appearances from the detention center so prisoners are not transported to the courthouse, saving
the county a large amount of money.
| |
Part of keeping costs under control
is specifying products that are
easy for systems integrators to install.
Mike Updaw, eastern regional sales
manager at Ashly Audio, highlights
PEMA, the manufacturer’s ‘courtroom-
in-a-box’, a self-contained
auto-mixing DSP housed in a four or
eight-zoned amplifier. “This allows
for discreet zone routing as well as a
discreet recording outputs standard,”
he explained. “It doesn’t get much
easier than that.”
With respect to courtroom security,
Luz, who works with Bosch’s
mass notification and Voice EVAC
systems, noted an increase in
demand for panic buttons. “There
have been recent incidents where
alleged criminals are brought into
court, and they have been able to
obtain a weapon of some kind, and
then they are able to hurt people
that are in the courtroom,” he illustrated.
Traditionally, courtrooms
are equipped with one or two panic
buttons, if any at all, that are routed
to the facility’s security desk. “We
have seen a huge increase in the
request that there be more panic
buttons in the courtroom, which is
an unfortunate reality.”
Whether it’s courtrooms or other
government facilities, the convergence
of AV and IT is continuing.
“The latest technologies in IT that
interface with networked audio and
video are always in demand, be it for
advanced Armed Forces simulators
or training facilities to something
as simple as a conference room or
classroom, or multiple classrooms,
for that matter,” Updaw said. “It is
easy to take advantage of the vast
information that is now available on
a piece of Cat-5 or fiber networked
cable. It is truly amazing how far the
industry has advanced in such a short
time regarding networking.”
All For One...
One of the tricks involved in servicing
the courthouse market is discerning who
pays for what, observed Larry Heilman,
president of Smith Audio Visual. “The
courts need to have certain equipment,
but who benefits from it?” he said. Typically,
it’s the sheriff that’s in charge of
prisoners, so AV systems are accounted
for in their budget, sometimes as a result
of pressure from the courts. “Some
state courts are run by the counties, but
in many states, the courts are run by
the state. If it’s run by the state but the
sheriff’s in the county, then you have that
coordination problem.”
Regardless, when commissioning
the installation of AV systems, courthouses
are increasingly moving toward
total solutions to boost efficiency.
“They want to be able to run courtroom
activities as fast as they can,” Heilman
said. “They want to convict the criminals,
but they also want to be fair on
the civil end, too. Attorneys can make
digital presentations of evidence, and it
speeds things up.”
This demand for total solutions
means that systems contractors must
be well-versed not only in the equipment
they’re providing; they must also
be familiar with the other technologies
that are going on the network in order
to convince the client that the system
will be bug-free. “If there’s not high
confidence that it will work, there will be
resistance from the client,” said Barry
Luz, systems applications specialist at
Bosch Communications Systems. “If
it plays nice with the other hardware
or software, the contractor will have a
much easier time making that sale.”
Lectrosonics’ ASPEN Series digital audio processing products were recently deployed in 14
courtrooms in a major Western U.S. Federal Courthouse. Working from a blueprint penned
by Spectrum Engineers of Salt Lake City, UT, Michael Bartee (pictured), audio-video systems
engineer for Huntsville, AL-based Quantum Technologies was involved in all aspects of the
installation, configuration, and programming of Lectrosonics ASPEN Series SPN1624 Digital
Matrix Mixer, SPN16i Input Expander, and SPNConference Interface unit in each courtroom.
Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.
|