Clerks, NC officials removed from eCourts lawsuit alleging excessive jail time, arrests

Ryan Oehrli
·3 min read

Several state court officials have been dismissed as defendants in a federal lawsuit over eCourts, North Carolina’s new, online court records and case management system.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs are people who were previously held at a number of North Carolina jails, including the Mecklenburg County Detention Center in uptown Charlotte. They alleged in court filings that they spent unlawful time behind bars after eCourts launched in four pilot counties in February 2023.

The software has promised to transform the state’s legal system by moving paper records online, allowing the public to access court records they could previously only get only by visiting a courthouse. But software errors and human errors have led to multiple arrests on the same warrants and extra time in jail after release conditions were met, plaintiffs alleged.

On Tuesday, the plaintiffs narrowed their allegations to Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe and the company that built the software, Tyler Technologies.

Mecklenburg County Clerk of Superior Court Elisa Chinn-Gary is no longer a defendant. Nor are other clerks from across the state, officials at the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts or Lee County Sheriff Brian Estes.

Joseph Kyzer, the deputy director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, shared the news in an email to The Charlotte Observer late Tuesday afternoon.

“We are pleased that plaintiffs dismissed their meritless claims against NCAOC and court officials,” Graham Wilson, a spokesperson for the office, said in a statement. “This dismissal should answer inaccuracies regarding eCourts as we remain focused on completing this generational expansion of access to justice for North Carolina.”

The dismissals were without prejudice, meaning state court officials and the clerks could still be sued.

“Our clients retain the ability to refile claims against the NCAOC and Clerk Defendants — whether in federal court or a different forum — as we continue to learn more,” Zack Ezor, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement Wednesday.

More details on Mecklenburg inmates

McFadden has asked that he, too, be dismissed from the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for McFadden said the sheriff’s office would not comment on pending litigation.

“While someone may be to blame for the delays in their release, it is not Sheriff McFadden,” a memorandum filed in court by the sheriff last month said.

McFadden was a critic of eCourts before he was dragged into the lawsuit, and before the software even launched in Mecklenburg County in October.

“We are all concerned,” he told WCNC before the launch. “Who’s going to suffer is the public.”

But McFadden’s “negligence” led to excess jail time for some people, plaintiffs have said.

Another new filing in the lawsuit included specifics about people in Mecklenburg County who say they spent extra time in jail during the first few weeks of eCourts’ Mecklenburg County rollout, providing names of 69 people and the alleged amount of extra time they were held.

Those waits ranged from nine to 23 hours, according to the new filing.

And the problem has continued as recently as March, it says.

The Observer reported in November on concerns from the public defender’s office about people getting out of jail late. At the time, that office and McFadden’s said that the delays seemed to be tied to eCourts.

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