The improved efficiency offered by a new computer system in the office of Prosecutor Bill Mason, above, is drawing praise even from defense attorneys.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Justice is moving a little quicker in Cuyahoga County.

A $3.2 million computer system administrated by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason’s office allows prosecutors to receive and share information with police, sheriff’s deputies, defense attorneys and others in the justice system.

As a result, police spend more time in the communities they are sworn to protect, the suspects police arrest are indicted in fewer days, and attorneys need fewer pretrial hearings, according to officials throughout the county justice system.

Even the prosecutor’s perennial opponents—defense attorneys—sing its praise.

“It is a very successful model,” said defense attorney Ian Friedman, who lauded the system in a speech this week about open discovery. “I believe other jurisdictions will look to Cuyahoga County’s model and will emulate it.”

It wasn’t long ago that the opposite was true. In 2004, the Denver-based Justice Management Institute described the county as having a “slow, antiquated and inefficient system.”

For decades, when police in the 59 communities in Cuyahoga County were ready to file felony charges, they gathered their paperwork and drove it downtown, sometimes keeping the officers away from their communities for hours.

Those officers now can send their reports, crime-scene photographs and 9-1-1 recordings to prosecutors with the push of a button.

“It saves a lot of man-hours in driving,” said Lakewood Police Chief Tim Malley.

Those are hours officers can spend working their cases, he said.

The process began to change four years ago when Pointe Blank Solutions, a Middleburg Heights-based software company, began work on the prosecutor’s case management computer system.

By August 2008, Mason’s office was connected electronically with some law enforcement agencies. The system now connects more than 100 local, state, federal and private law enforcement agencies in the county. Cleveland’s Police Department is not fully connected because of its old computer system.

The old way also involved secretaries typing police reports into the prosecutor’s system. Now the data is automatically imported into the prosecutors’ files, freeing up staff to do other duties.

These improvements have contributed to reducing the number of days defendants sit in jail between arrest and indictment, saving taxpayers money, sheriff’s and prosecutor’s officials said.

And in the past, once cases made it to trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys would have multiple pretrial hearings to discuss sharing information.

But now the computer system automates the process of discovery. Reports, photographs and recordings of 9-1-1 calls are shared electronically, cutting down on copying and delivery costs. And the system keeps a record of which attorneys have viewed files, cutting down on court time.

Changing from paper and tape records to purely digital saves the cost of copying and delivering case files that can exceed 1,000 pages.

“We used to have a typing pool of six people, manually typing grand jury indictments,” first assistant prosecutor Michael O’Malley said.

The office has reassigned five to other duties, he said.

Word of the prosecutor’s computer system already has spread.

The Summit County prosecutor’s office is getting an upgrade, and prosecutors there hope their new system will have some of the features of Cuyahoga’s.

The Franklin County prosecutor met with the vendor of Cuyahoga’s system, but didn’t have the money to upgrade its system, officials said.

Cuyahoga County’s system also can generate reports on subjects such as how long defendants have been awaiting trial or the speed that prosecuting attorneys handle their cases.

“We made the system better to the point we can make it better,” O’Malley said.

But there is still room for improvement, he said.

Parole, probation and court psychiatric clinic officials have access to the system at the prosecutor’s office rather than logging in remotely. Bond investigators have yet to use the system at all, and the system cannot link to the clerk of court’s computer system that includes the court dockets, O’Malley said.

“They get files electronically, print it, retype it, print the retyped file and scan it,” said Peter Szigeti, the prosecutor’s chief information officer.

But judges have balked at this because Pointe Blank inherited the job from a company implicated in the FBI’s Cuyahoga County corruption probe.

Pointe Blank has not been implicated in the FBI’s probe.

This is not the only reason the prosecutor’s computer system has been controversial.

In 2000, Mason hired Szigeti, who had been an independent consultant for Pointe Blank, to be his point man for information technology.

In August 2002, while still working in Mason’s office, Szigeti started an Internet and software company, Szignature Systems.

Five months later, Mason’s office recommended Szignature receive a contract to do work for the prosecutor’s office that started at $83,000 a year. The county’s Automated Data Processing Board approved the contract.

Szigeti then left his county job and his company went on to collect $1.1 million for work done for the prosecutor’s office.

After The Plain Dealer reported that in January, Mason canceled Szignature’s contract and rehired Szigeti at an annual salary of $117,000.

Mason has said his office is one of the most technologically advanced in the country because of Szigeti.

“Pete has done a tremendous job with the office’s IT department,” Miday said for The Plain Dealer’s story in January. “It is light years ahead of any prosecuting attorney’s office in the country, and we are fortunate to have him.”