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Florida Prosecutor Uses RFID To Track Files In Real Time
Featuring Dan Zinn, CIO, Florida Office of the State Attorney's 15th Judicial Circuit

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Integration Story: Florida Prosecutor Uses RFID To Track Files In Real Time

Used with permission from RFID Journal, Inc.

The Florida Office of the State Attorney's 15th Judicial Circuit is using passive RFID tags integrated with a real-time location system (RTLS) to track the thousands of felony case files the court system processes annually.

The 15th Judicial Circuit has always found it challenging to track all of its active felony case files, which move from various divisions and offices in the 45,000-square-foot, four-floor building in Palm Beach County. Over the course of a year, the 15th Judicial Circuit typically considers 120,000 criminal cases for potential prosecution. Of those, as many as 18,000 come into the office each year for review and processing. At least half of these 18,000 cases are pleabargained or have warrants issued on their behalf because a criminal got away; the other half become active files within the court system. The files move through a number of steps during the life of the case, and can be transferred between divisions and offices.

When an attorney requires a specific file, it can be difficult to track down. "It is not that they are misplaced," says Dan Zinn, CIO for the Office of the State Attorney's 15th Judicial Circuit. "It's just that no one is sure where the files are in the process." Zinn began considering methods to help track files in 2004, but at the time, the available technologies were not adequately advanced. Fortunately, Zinn says, the 15th Judicial Circuit state attorney, Barry E. Krisher, has been championing the project from the get-go. "My state attorney is very visionary," he states. "It is his vision and his support that made this happen."

In July, the state attorney's office began installing InnerWireless' RTLS technology (which the company acquired upon merging with PanGo Networks in March), as well as ThingMagic Mercury5 RFID interrogators and a Zebra Technologies RFID label printerencoder— which, according to Zinn, has programming and read capabilities consistent with those of ThingMagic readers.

Click Here To Download:
Integration Story: Florida Prosecutor Uses RFID To Track Files In Real Time