The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is turning to online collaboration tool SharePoint to improve its processing of stage one commutation applications.
District attorneys must get access to applications within 10 days of pardon and parole completing their review. Files for each applicant will be accessible on an agency SharePoint site, which should provide faster access than hard copies.
District attorneys should get automatic notifications when a case from their area is uploaded.
"They'll only get notice for those cases that are from that district, and it'll go to everyone that, that DA identifies in his office or her office that they want to receive those notices. So, their victim witness coordinators, first assistants, line prosecutors that handled the case," Bates said.
Board member Allen McCall asked during Monday’s meeting how much information will be in an online file, point out many inmates don’t list prior convictions for the same offense on their application.
"And so, it looks like just on their application if they just put burglary that the sentence is out of range, when in fact, if it's an after former, it's within range," McCall said.
Bates said that will be the case, as information will still come from handwritten applications.
"I am hopeful, though, by getting it out quicker and in a way that's cleaner and easier for the recipients to process, that maybe the DAs' offices can give us that feedback and say, 'Hey, this person does have some after formers or something that we need to be aware of,'" Bates said.
Agency general counsel Kyle Counts said SharePoint use is scalable if applications increase. The technology was already available to the pardon and parole board.
Also during Monday's meeting, the board selected Adam Luck to serve as chair and Larry Morris to serve as vice chair.
