Jennifer Zaino
SemanticWeb.com Contributor

Florida is once again a notch in Metatomix' belt. The semantic web vendor's platform powers its Judicial Inquiry System (JIS), and now the Sunshine State's Lee County has extended the technology behind that system in its implementation of the platform for its Active Warrant Alert System. The Active Warrant system identifies defendants appearing before the court who have open local, Florida, out-of-state or federal warrants.

In that capacity, the technology serves as the platform providing much-needed help for a county that didn't have enough manpower to consistently and holistically check warrant information from sheriff's departments and attorney's offices across local, state and national information systems at every stage of the process, from first appearance through arraignments, docket appearances, and any other time a defendant shows up in court. Previously, with staffing being what it was, it wasn't always possible for bailiffs to conduct full background checks for other warrants across more than a dozen databases, in multiple formats, at every turn beyond the first appearance, because the process was too-labor intensive, says Sheila Mann, court operations manager for communications.

That was a problem, because if the defendant had been suspected of engaging in other criminal activity between first appearance and his formal charging at arraignment, or even at a docket sounding to check that everything is ready for trial, the fact that he was wanted on another charge might not be uncovered.

"If they walked into court, and we don't know they had another warrant out on them, they might walk right back out," says Mann. "If we knew a warrant was out we could arrest them at their arraignment or court dates."

The Metatomix Semantic Platform that underlies the Active Warrant Alert System, developed by Metatomix in conjunction with the Florida Office of State Courts Administrator, connects data from multiple sources in real-time and presents active warrant information to the court's calendar system and the Comprehensive Case Information System.

Lee County began testing the technology in October, going live in November with the implementation that cost around $150,000 as part of a joint effort with the Lee County Sheriff's Department. Within the first eight days of going live, the Metatomix system ran through some 3,000 names and identified 141 warrants, Mann says. Metatomix notes that that led to 16 arrests. "Now we can see we are hitting things outside of our local area that weren't picked up before - we just didn't have manpower," says Mann.

This is the first county in Florida to integrate the Active Warrant Alert System, but Mann notes that the Collier County's sheriff's department has signed on to use the technology as well.

"It goes through all of the databases, and highlights various information," she says. "You can search through a limited part of databases or drill deeper." What does she think about the semantic technology that makes all this possible? Mann cares only that it works, and works well. "I heard all the semantic stuff and I get that it is something really cool, but I'm just glad that we get these hits."