Evaluation of Telephone Conferencing in Civil and Criminal Court Cases

• NCJ Number: 92421
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 118 pages
• Grant Number(s): 81-IJ-CX-0011; IST-8024715
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation

Annotation

This evaluation of the Colorado and New Jersey experiences with telephone conferencing provides empirical justification for the adoption of telephone conferencing by other jurisdictions and an extension into other areas such as posttrial motions of prison inmates and oral argument in appellate courts.

Abstract

Telephone conferencing, which is a court hearing conducted through a three-way telephone conversation among the judge and the two attorneys residing in their respective offices, is a possible way of avoiding the travel time and minimizing the waiting time associated with the traditional in-court approach. The evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of telephone conferencing in New Jersey and Colorado involved interviews with attorneys, judges, and other court staff; observation of telephone conferencing and court proceedings; and an examination of court rules to understand how the innovation was integrated into existing practices. The findings indicate that the range of matters handled by telephone conference was extraordinarily wide. In civil cases, applications involved substantive, discovery, and procedural motions along with related pretrial hearings. In criminal cases, applications involved lower court appeals, motions, arraignments, show-cause hearings in bond forfeiture, and witness testimony. Attorneys saved both travel and waiting time. Judges, attorneys, and court staff were generally satisfied with telephone conferencing, and civil litigants and criminal defendants paid lower fees when their attorneys participated in telephone conferences. The appendixes detail the evaluation findings, and tabular data are provided. Twenty-five bibliographic entries are included.