Some 6,000 traffic court arrest warrants issued by O'ahu judges since November are finally available for service by police and sheriffs, but they've just been added to an existing backlog of 40,000 unserved warrants sitting in law enforcement files.

The 6,000 new warrants were supposed to be part of a digital, "paperless" warrants system included in a new state-of-the-art Judiciary Information Management System, or JIMS, which went online in November.

But startup problems in the paperless warrants project forced the Judiciary to continue creating the traffic court arrest warrants the old-fashioned way — by hand.

The unexpected snarl-up in the system meant that for seven months after the JIMS computer went operational, no traffic court arrest warrants could be served because they hadn't been created or delivered to the Sheriffs Division warrants office in the state Capitol basement.

While waiting for the new JIMS warrants, sheriffs concentrated on whittling down the backlog of warrants built up under the old Judiciary computer system called TRAVIS. As of last month, the sheriffs had reduced the TRAVIS backlog from 46,000 to 40,000 warrants, according to Lt. Frank Dela Rosa of the warrants office.

Then the new JIMS warrants arrived, boosting the backlog to 46,000.

And the new paperless warrants system still isn't working. As reported in February, the Judiciary, in planning for the new system, forgot to ask the Legislature for changes to state law permitting the "electronic" imprinting of judges' signatures and court seals on JIMS-generated warrants.

Last Monday, Gov. Linda Lingle signed those changes into law, so now the Judiciary can start implementing the new system, said courts spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa.

"We are currently drafting internal procedures and processes, which we hope to have implemented in all courts as soon as it is feasible," Kitagawa said Wednesday.

Another glitch to be addressed is that the system can't be accessed 24 hours a day, which police say is a must. The computer is down three hours every night for maintenance and transmission of data to other jurisdictions, according to Kitagawa. Operating around the clock will require more computer hardware and more personnel, but it's unknown when they will be available.

NEVERENDING BACKLOG

Once the paperless warrants system is running, it will be a boon to the courts and to law enforcement, Kitagawa said, allowing "the courts to electronically sign and seal bench warrants and digitally store them so that it will no longer be necessary to print, endorse and deliver bench warrants to the law enforcement agencies for service."

But there still won't be enough personnel to serve them, law enforcement officials said.

There aren't enough state sheriffs to serve outstanding warrants, so the backlog of unserved papers is guaranteed to keep growing.

The Legislature reacted to news stories about the warrants backlog by creating not one but two task forces to study the problem and recommend solutions.

One bill passed by the Legislature calls for creation of a task force under the control of the Judicial Council, an advisory body attached to the Judiciary. And the Legislature passed a separate resolution creating another task force under the control of Attorney General Mark Bennett.

Bennett said that task force will be supervised by Deputy Attorney General Diane Taira and is still in the organizational stages.

"The Judiciary has been in contact with the Department of the Attorney General and will be coordinating concurrent (task force) meetings since the parties identified are essentially the same," Kitagawa said. "We hope the meetings will be scheduled as soon as practical, given the number of organizations involved."

Another bill passed by the Legislature this year was aimed at reducing the arrest warrants backlog by allowing the employment of retired law enforcement officers to serve the papers.

Lingle permitted that measure to pass into law without her signature, saying the bill was faulty and would have to be fixed next year.

The law budgets no money to pay the retirees, she pointed out.

And she said that while the attorney general is assigned the responsibility of drawing up administrative rules for the program, the measure does not say what state agency should be responsible for running it.

MISSING WARRANTS

Kitagawa said this week that the Judiciary is still mystified by another warrants-related problem that turned up in April.

Melva Ferreira, chief warrants clerk in the sheriffs office, reported that at least 19 felony arrest warrants entered into sheriffs' computers since November had never been transmitted to police computers.

State Judiciary officials said in April they did not know what caused the problem but were satisfied that it was not associated with the JIMS.

"Unfortunately, we have not been able to conclusively identify the cause of the problem," Kitagawa said this week.

Among the missing warrants was one issued for the arrest of a 21-year-old man who was later involved in a violent confrontation with police in Hale'iwa in April.

Four other missing warrants were issued by the Hawai'i Paroling Authority for felony offenders who violated the terms of their parole.

"It's a serious problem from our standpoint," Tommy Johnson, paroling authority administrator, said when the issue first came to light. "We wish we'd known about it sooner."

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.