Blair County approves DA software renewals to manage growing electronic discovery

The Blair County Board of Commissioners on May 1 approved two renewal agreements for the District Attorney's Office to continue using case-management and investigative-records software that the office says is needed to manage growing volumes of digital evidence.

District Attorney Weeks told commissioners the office seeks approval of a renewal with Carpal (Carpell) Solutions for the prosecution case-management platform for the term July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, and a separate annual license with Informant Technologies for detective incident reporting. Weeks said the county first adopted the prosecution software in 2020 and that criminal discovery now includes multiple video files per case that consume substantial storage space.

Weeks outlined the cost components for the Carpal (Carpell) Solutions renewal: a per-user licensing/maintenance fee of $450 per user for 20 users, an annual hosting fee of $150 per user (noted as $3,000 for 20 users during the presentation), a discovery-interface maintenance fee of $2,000, and additional storage costs of $13,500. For Informant Technologies, Weeks said the county would pay an annual license of $1,490 to allow detectives to record incident reports in a centralized system rather than in standalone word-processing files.

Commissioners moved and seconded the motions to approve both agreements. Both motions passed on voice votes with no recorded no votes or abstentions.

Why this matters: District Attorney Weeks said the software and additional storage enable staff to transmit discovery electronically to defense counsel and to preserve investigative records in a consistent, auditable format. The county and public defenders both bear the operational impact of larger multimedia discovery, Weeks said.

The agreements approved on May 1 take effect in July 2025 for a one-year term on the Carpal (Carpell) Solutions contract and the Informant Technologies license as described.