A $12 million contract first awarded in 2002 to overhaul and modernize the state Judiciary's computer system has been terminated, far from completion.

The job was canceled by mutual agreement with the contractor, ACS Government Systems Inc., last week, according to a copy of the cancellation papers obtained from the Judiciary.

ACS will be allowed to complete work on one portion of the project — design and installation of a jury system computer — but will halt work on the problem-plagued traffic court system that began operations in November 2006, according to the agreement.

Additional work on new computer systems for civil, criminal, family, land and tax courts was never begun by ACS.

The state paid ACS $697,824 in advance fees for the criminal court system and that money will be refunded by the company, less $250,000 that the Judiciary has agreed to pay for equipment, hardware and software license fees for the traffic court computer "module," the agreement said.

The entire new Judiciary Information Management System, known as JIMS, was supposed to have been operational next year. But problems appeared in just the first phase of the traffic court system when it went online in late 2006.

That module was supposed to cost $5.19 million but change orders added $1.15 million to the price tag for a system that one legislator called "irrevocably broken" not long after it went into service.

That legislator, state Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), more recently called the JIMS project "a black hole for the taxpayers and a black eye for the Judiciary."

Judiciary officials were unavailable for comment late yesterday on what will happen now.

Last November, courts administrator Thomas Keller sent ACS a three-page notice of default that claimed the company had failed to deliver a workable computer system for traffic courts.

Keller said in the letter that attempts to reach a "mutual accommodation" on fixing the traffic computer had failed.

"The only accommodation that could be reached would have required the Judiciary to abandon many of the required functions and to incur significant additional expenses for the few accommodations that ACS was willing to make," Keller said in the November letter.

ACS spokesman Andy Wilson said at the time that the company "vigorously denies the state's claims," adding that the Dallas-based firm "has fulfilled its contract to implement the state's traffic courts record-keeping system."

When the state released the default letter last year, it noted that ACS was "involved in litigation in Tennessee over the same case management software" the company installed here.

Wilson of ACS denied allegations of deficiencies in the company's work in Nashville.

Courts officials said late last year that if the JIMS contract were terminated, "the Judiciary will seek other ways to complete the JIMS project."

Available options, the state said, "include modifying the current software, if possible, or seeking proposals for replacement software."