05:35 PM CST on Tuesday, January 3, 2006

By Janice Williamson / 11 News

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A Houston court's first attempt to go paperless did not go so well Tuesday. The new computer system just couldn't handle the load generated by a big post holiday crowd.

KHOU-TV

The city's attempt to go paperless with a new computer system created long lines and short tempers.

Cappuccino wasn't the only thing piping hot at the municipal courts building.

"Right now it's a fiasco," said Daniel Corrigan, defense attorney.

Corrigan and hundreds of other people spent the morning waiting to do business.

"You're talking about hundreds of cases every hour on the hour," he said. "You can't do this with one computer system. The old system was fine. If something is not broken don't fix it."

The city's attempt to go paperless with a new computer system created long lines and short tempers.

"Getting here at nine o'clock thinking I have time to go to court and get back to work taking off an hour. Now I'm missing four hours instead of one," said Houston resident Michael Fondal.

Judges, clerks, and police can now access paperwork for all cases.

Richard Lewis, the city's information technology director, said the hardware on the new system just wasn't big enough.

"Primarily the time it took was longer than it should so we've shut it down and we're going back to the old system," Lewis said.

But only temporarily. The city has invested $10 million in the Integrated Court Management System.

Right now it takes a patrol officer about 15 minutes to determine if the motorist he just pulled over has an outstanding warrant. When the new system is up and running the process will take just seconds.

Another advantage is that traffic courts will no longer need to store millions of documents.

The city is adding new hardware to handle the workload and the new system should be up and running in a couple of weeks.