The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) merged with the Legal XML standards group. They have a Technical Committee working with CourtFiling. This group is in the process of adopting a Court Document XML standard.

Several of our University's graduate students have prepared criminal justice forms using this standard. We were fortunate to have the cooperation from the McDonough County State Attorney's Office and Stan Carman, Sherriff for McDonough County. Each gave us several forms. Also, we used blank forms from the criminal justice courtrooms of McDonough county and from the Cook County Circuit Clerk's Office. From that office, Dorothy Brown, Jim Ford, and Laura Lane-Ferguson have been helpful to us.

As a prelude to court automation, we are looking at documents that are similar each time. E. G. Guilty pleas contain similar information. We hope to have a standard XML containing the important data: the defendant's name, the charge, etc. Then, the XSL is used to transform the information so it can printed by each court in the format they expect. We make use of the addIn tag in the Court Document 1.1 standard for this information. Note that most of the text, the boiler plate, in the form is in the XSL, not the XML.

Here are the forms that we have prepared. Each form has a sample XML file and an XSL style sheet.

1. We got the Plea Of Guilty from the McDonough County Court room. XSL
2. We got the Plea Of Not Guilty from the McDonough County Court room. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Ms. Yingru Chen)
3. This is a form to quash a Bench Warrant used by McDonough County, Illinois.
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Imtinan Ahmad ) Mr. Shrestha updated this XSL to use the substr mechanism of XML Style Sheets to extract extract the year, month, and day from the contents of the XML date tag.
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Ms. Yingru Chen)
   
4. Entry Of Appearance used by McDonough County, Illinois. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Sunil Shrestha )

   This form is used in and out of Criminal Justice. To simplify matters, we did not handle this forms use for respondent, etc. We encoded it to display an entry of appearance for a defendant in a criminal case.

   This form requires the entry of the name of the Law Firm. I have written to an author of the Court Document 1.1 standard as this DTD does not provide for including a LawFirm tag with attorney informaiton.

5. Order of Forfeiture Absolute used by McDonough County, Illinois. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Ms. Tin Tin Khine )
6. Ordering Deferring Further Proceedings (cannabis offense) used by McDonough County, Illinois. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Zaw Han )
7. Notice to Appear. (This single form shows extraction of an Illinois State Statute and a reference to a municipal ordinance. Of course, both references would not appear on a real document. This also shows the importance of developing a citation standard.)
   XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Zaw Han )
8. Continuation Order used by McDonough County, Illinois. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Imtinan Ahmad )
9. Body Attachment Order used by McDonough County, Illinois. XSL
   (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Sunil Shrestha )

   Note: We used the ProofOfService as a Return of Service. We don't know if this is correct.

10. Notification of Motion used by Cook County, Illinois. XSL
    (XML and XSL Prepared by Ms. Yingru Chen )

    This is Cook County Clerk Form CCCR001.

11. Information and Description of Defendant used by Cook County, Illinois for Ordinance Violations and Class "C" Misdemeanors. XSL
    (XML and XSL Prepared by Mr. Imtinan Ahmad )

    This is Cook County Clerk Form CCCR224.

    We are wondering how to detect an AddIn tag with a specific attribute addInType and a specific text. Also, we need specific markup for Statute's and Violations.

12. Bail Bond Form used by McDonough County, Illinois XSL
    (XML and XSL Prepared by Ms. Tin Tin Khin )

    Thanks to the McDonough County Sherriff for a copy of this form.

    Mr. Chambers wisely suggested that we might consider this form several documents. Then, they can be combined with XSL. Mr. Shreshthra did this.

    block1.xml is the main block that invokes the style sheet. Using the document feature of XSL, that style sheet brings in the other four components of this form. This allows each of these to be individually signed:

    1. Notice to person other than the defendant who is providing the money
    2. Certificate of defendant
    3. Signature of police office taking the security
    4. Assignment of bailbond by the defendant back to the person providing the money