Self Attempt 03

Court Operations Closeout & Financial Packet Skill

Purpose

Produce a structured JSON closeout, disposition register, or post-sentencing packet for a court clerk by reconciling local hearing materials against a Court Operations Portal. The output always matches a provided answer_template.json schema.

Scope

This skill covers criminal-sentencing closeouts, traffic-violation closeouts, post-sentencing field packets, and disposition-batch registers for circuit and district courts. It applies whenever the task asks the clerk to:

• Reconcile hearing notes / clerk worksheets with portal data
• Resolve audit conflicts between local drafts and authoritative sources
• Compute fee schedules, payment plans, and batch totals
• Prepare CC-1375 / CC-1379 style referral and license-suspension forms
• Exclude unsupported or stale charges from financial entries

Operating Rules

1. Source Hierarchy — Resolving Conflicts

When local payload values conflict with each other or with the portal, resolve in this priority order:

Key principle: A draft or carry-forward value from a finance queue, intake sheet, or legacy worksheet is never authoritative over a hearing note or portal record. Always flag and correct it.

2. Fee Reconciliation Rules

1. Verify every fee against the current portal schedule. Do not use archived, expired, or "old local worksheet" amounts. If the portal gives a different amount for the same fee code, use the portal amount.
2. Only post fees directly supported by the hearing order or current schedule. The following fee types are never added unless the hearing record or portal confirms them:
   • Account-management / account-maintenance fee
   • Collection referral fee
   • Late-payment fee
   • DMV / DMV reinstatement fee
   • Returned-check fee
   • Court-appointed-attorney fee (unless ordered)
   • Court-reporter fee
   • Restitution (unless an order appears)
   • Traffic-school program fee
   • Certification / copy fee
3. Public defender user fee is only appropriate when counsel classification is confirmed as public defender. If counsel is reclassified (e.g., appointed private), exclude the PD user fee.
4. Drug / controlled-substance assessment amounts must match the current schedule for the disposition year, not a prior-year archived amount.

3. Counsel Classification

4. Disposition-Status Decisions

1. Only enter a disposition if a signed order or on-the-record finding exists. If the judge did not sign the order or the matter was continued, the case status is deferred / continued / pending — never disposed.
2. A case that is deferred/continued must not receive a financial register entry. Mark it as hold or exclude in the fee section.
3. Draft plea lines, draft disposition sheets, and unsigned order references are not final — treat them as non-authoritative.

5. Departure and Sentencing Entry

• A "top of the range" sentence is not a departure. Only enter a departure finding if the judge made an explicit departure finding on the record.
• If a draft worksheet carried a departure label but the judge stated "no departure finding," correct it to no_departure / none.

6. Identity and DOB Handling

• If the hearing notes correct a DOB or name spelling, use the corrected value.
• If DOB is genuinely missing and must be verified from the case file before permanent entry, use the placeholder TBD from case file. Do not borrow a DOB from a similarly named defendant or a prior search result.
• If the finance queue and hearing notes disagree on identity (name spelling, DOB), the hearing notes prevail; record the conflict as an audit finding.

7. Payment Plans and Budget Review

1. Petition classification must follow the intake sequence label (first petition, subsequent, deferred, exempt).
2. Support classification compares the petitioner's requested monthly amount against the jurisdiction's payment-policy band (minimum and maximum). Classify as:
   • supportable — within policy band
   • below_policy_minimum — below minimum
   • above_policy_maximum — above maximum
   • unsupported_by_budget — disposable income cannot sustain it
3. Account-fee treatment: Check current jurisdiction policy. If the policy excludes the fee, classify as excluded_by_policy; if included, included_by_policy; if uncertain, verify_before_entry. Counter worksheets and old fee rows are not authoritative for whether the fee is due.
4. Payment application order: Follow what the record or policy states (e.g., fines/costs first vs. restitution first). If a petitioner asks for a different order but no policy or order supports it, use the default jurisdictional policy.
5. Installment math: Compute total_installments = ceil((total_due - down_payment) / installment_amount). Compute final_payment_amount = total_due - down_payment - (full_installment_count × installment_amount). If the balance divides evenly, final_payment_amount equals the regular installment.

8. CC-1375 (Probation Referral) and CC-1379 (License Suspension / Installment Order)

1. CC-1375 is prepared only when supervised probation is ordered. If no supervised probation referral order was signed, status is not_ordered.
2. CC-1379 license suspension start date follows the applicable basis (conviction date, release date, or petition date per the answer template). End date = start date + suspension months.
3. Placeholder handling: For any required form field that cannot be completed from the petition, sentencing note, or portal — including SSN, driver license number, addresses, phone numbers, probation officer name, or probation office location — enter the placeholder TBD from case file. Never invent or fabricate identifiers or contact details.
4. Return-to-court trigger: Set based on the payment agreement terms. If no default or review is triggered, use none.

9. Form and Account-Reference Handling

• If no separate case number or account number has been opened (e.g., traffic citations), use the citation number as the account reference.
• Use the correct form ID and label from the portal or local excerpt. Obsolete footer charges or old form revisions do not override current policy.

10. Output Formatting

11. Excluded Charges / Unsupported Items

List every charge or fee that was considered but excluded, with:

• The charge or item identifier
• Which matter(s) it applies to (or all)
• A reason code drawn from the answer template's enum (e.g., stale_schedule, unsupported_post_disposition, not_in_hearing_order, not_current_policy, no_triggering_event, no_order_or_policy_support, not_part_of_balance)

12. Batch / Register Totals

• Sum only the amounts for cases with post / disposed_enter status. Cases on hold or excluded do not contribute to totals.
• Verify that grand_total / batch_total_due equals the sum of all included fee categories.
• Count cases accurately: assessed_case_count / disposed_case_count includes only posted cases; held_case_count / excluded_pending_count includes only held/excluded ones.

Workflow

When executing a court closeout or packet task, follow this sequence:

1. Read all local payloads — hearing notes, audit memos, finance extracts, clerk worksheets, sentencing intake facts, petition summaries, probation notes, form excerpts.
2. Query the portal for each relevant endpoint (jurisdictions, cases, charges, docket-entries, citations, fee-schedules, payment-policies, forms, financial-petitions, search). Use only the endpoints documented in environment_access.md at <base_url>.
3. Identify conflicts between local materials and portal data. For each conflict, determine the correct value using the source hierarchy (Rule 1).
4. Classify each case — disposed vs. deferred/pending. Only disposed cases with signed orders receive financial entries.
5. Reconcile fees — verify each fee line against the current portal schedule, correct stale amounts, exclude unsupported charges, and recompute totals.
6. Prepare form sub-objects (CC-1375, CC-1379, payment plans, budget reviews) using the corrected data. Use placeholders for missing identifiers.
7. Build the answer JSON matching the answer template exactly — correct enums, correct sorting, correct precision.
8. Validate — check that batch totals sum correctly, all required keys are present, and no invented values exist.

Portal Access Reference

• Base URL: From environment_access.md (network-only; no server-side file access)
• Credentials: None required within the network
• Allowed endpoints:
  • GET /api/jurisdictions
  • GET /api/cases
  • GET /api/charges
  • GET /api/docket-entries
  • GET /api/citations
  • GET /api/fee-schedule
  • GET /api/fee-schedules
  • GET /api/payment-policies
  • GET /api/forms
  • GET /api/financial-petitions
  • GET /api/search

Do not attempt to read server-side files or access undocumented endpoints.