Kansas committee hears bill to standardize pre-sentence and journal-entry forms
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Summary
A House corrections committee heard testimony on HB 2552, which would require pre-sentence investigation reports and journal entries be completed in the form and manner prescribed by the Kansas Sentencing Commission to support an existing electronic case app and improve statewide data consistency.
A House committee heard testimony on HB 2552 on measures to standardize criminal pre-sentence investigation (PSI) reports and court journal entries by requiring them to be completed and submitted in the form and manner prescribed by the Kansas Sentencing Commission.
The bill would change statutory language so that forms currently ‘‘approved’’ by the Sentencing Commission must instead be completed in a form and manner the commission prescribes, and it adds a provision that courts shall not accept documents submitted in other formats. Jason Thompson of the Reviser’s Office told the Committee the change is intended to codify use of an electronic system already being rolled out.
Director Schultz of the Sentencing Commission described a multi-year digitization effort that moved PSI and journal entry data into a cloud-based case application. Schultz said the commission used a federal grant to begin the project, launched a soft rollout in October 2024 and now has more than 1,200 users. ‘‘About 75% of that information is transferred over’’ from PSIs to journal entries in the application, Schultz said, and the system enforces required fields to reduce error and duplication. He told the committee the electronic process is free to jurisdictions and will speed filing, reduce rework and improve the reliability of statewide criminal justice data.
Judge Benjamin Sexton, speaking by Webex, said inaccurate journal entries have required courts to reconvene hearings after KDOC flags problems; he said the app’s validation and auto-fill functions should prevent many of those follow-ups and save time for judges, prosecutors, clerks and KDOC staff. Representative Carmichael asked about ‘‘Odyssey,’’ the state’s e-filing system, and Sexton said the application will upload through Odyssey so judges will continue to sign documents through existing judicial workflows.
No committee vote was taken on HB 2552 during the hearing. The committee closed the hearing with proponents available for later questions as members move toward working the bill in a future session.