ANNOUNCING NEW ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY TECHNOLOGY

As part of the our ongoing effort to employ technological resources to increase the level of service we provide, on August 1, 2011, the Boise City Attorney's Office went "live" with an electronic criminal case discovery system.  Typically, prosecutors across the country provide printed copies of criminal discovery to defendants and their counsel by sending a printed copy of discovery materials through the U.S. Mail.  The Boise City Attorney will be using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site to employ this new technology. Using this new system, the daily transfer of discovery information will be accomplished electronically.  Defendants or their attorneys will be able to instantly download all of their discovery materials, including police reports, audio and photographs from a secure server.

In addition to the criminal responsibilities our office has, the Boise City Attorney's Office also handles the vast majority of the City's civil litigation in-house, saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in legal fees.  In an effort to reduce the use of paper and become more efficient in the processing of these civil cases in both state and federal court, we have deployed the same discovery production technology in our civil cases as we use in criminal prosecution.  Our office will now make civil discovery available to opposing counsel on a secure FTP site.

The City Attorney's Office is very excited about this expanded use of technology and we believe that it will not only benefit the City taxpayers in maximizing efficiency, but assist in a more efficient use of the court docket in our jurisdiction.