AO No. 2021-6 — Mandatory Submission of Case Data to the Judicial Data Warehouse

[Entered September 23, 2021.]

For two decades, the Judicial Data Warehouse has been an essential tool allowing users to locate trial court records from throughout the state, informing judicial decisions, enhancing court administration, improving public policy through data-driven research, and promoting transparency.

Nearly all trial courts provide a daily or weekly feed of case-level data to the JDW, but frequently, certain data elements are missing or reported inconsistently by different courts, and several courts do not participate at all, creating problematic data gaps. To address these problems, courts should be required to submit data in a uniform manner and across all courts. Doing so will ensure the JDW contains uniformly reported data that will be more useful to courts, law enforcement, researchers, and other users. In addition, a more complete database will relieve courts of the requirement to submit certain reports that are currently prepared manually or with special programming, and ultimately is intended to be a resource for the general public about how courts in Michigan operate.

Therefore, on order of the Court, pursuant to 1963 Const, Art VI, §4, which provides for the Supreme Court’s general superintending control over all state courts, all trial courts must submit all case data including nonpublic and financial records to the Judicial Data Warehouse in a format and frequency defined by the SCAO. This order replaces all existing Memoranda of Understanding between SCAO and any trial courts regarding the JDW.

This order shall remain in effect until further order of the Court.