After a weekend crash of the Missouri court management system, Casenet, workers in Greene County's court system are scrambling to carry out normal business.
Various systems in Casenet, the online database of Missouri courts, are unavailable or have limited functionality due to an electrical issue, according to an announcement on the homepage of the database.
On June 29, an electrical failure at one of the Missouri judiciary's data centers damaged computer equipment, resulting in the Casenet outage, according to a Supreme Court of Missouri's State Courts Administrator's Office (OSCA) press release.
Greene County courts remained open Monday, June 1, but “it's possible” courts will close if problems with the management system persist, said Bryan Feemster, Greene County Circuit Clerk.
“We're hopeful that they'll get this case management system up and running before the end of the day,” Feemster said during a phone interview July 1. “If not, we have already been talking about what to do in that situation, but we have not come to a final decision.”
Technicians are working on the issue with Casenet and will resolve it “as quickly as possible,” according to an announcement on the website. Casenet is maintained by the Missouri Office of State Court Administrator.
Greene County courts do not maintain the statewide management system, but the county has a few information technology specialists who are involved in restoring the functionality of the database, Feemster said. While some of the day-to-day tasks of Greene County courts have not been possible with the outage, any duties that are critical are being taken care of, Feemster said.
“We don't have most of the systems we normally have to carry out court business right now,” Feemster said.
The Greene County circuit clerk said in his year-and-a-half tenure, he has never seen an outage as widespread and impactful as this.
“I haven't seen it to this extent before,” Feemster said. “You may have temporary glitches in one program or another... but as far as something that's been statewide like this, I haven't seen before.”
Feemster said the clerk's office will make announcements of court closures and updates on the restoration of Casenet on its website.
“We're certainly doing everything we can to keep the courts going as well as we possibly can under the circumstances,” Feemster said.
