Court Administrators and their staffs face many issues today that did not exist only a few short years ago. The Internet and the ease of access to information that it has brought is driving the requirement for courts to move more and more into the realm of Electronic courts (E-Courts). E-Courts must be able to satisfy the wants, needs, and demands of not only the traditional court clientele but the internal court customer base as well. Access to court information, court forms, court processes; all must be made more accessible and available 24 hours a day. These issues and many others line the path leading to becoming an Electronic Court.

The Alabama courts and the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) have been moving toward E-Court status for the last 4 years. Several developmental steps have been taken toward this goal, one of which was the implementation of an intelligent application for computing sentencing based on the Alabama Sentencing Commission Guidelines.

All states struggle with the concept of sentencing reform, sentencing guidelines and other such thorny issues. Working directly with the Alabama Sentencing Guidelines Commission, CyberBest Technology was able to develop a web based application for use by the Alabama courts. This "artificial intelligence" application is interactive and actually performs calculations based upon input supplied by the user. That user input is then compared to the sentencing business rules which were developed in concert with the Alabama Sentencing Commission and an individual score is developed. The score is compared once again to the guidelines and from that a sentencing recommendation is determined. This sophisticated, browser based application has been widely accepted by the Alabama courts and is in use statewide.