Mr. Stevens was granted $50,000 bond by an Edgefield County magistrate judge after being charged with kidnapping an estranged girlfriend Feb. 14. Less than a year before, he had been convicted of criminal domestic violence in Aiken County.

Neither county's prosecutors knew of the other's charges against Mr. Stevens, who had a long history of accusations of violence against women.

Aiken County Solicitor Barbara Morgan said that if she had known Mr. Stevens was up for bond in Edgefield County, she could have assisted Edgefield prosecutors in getting bond denied by showing Judge Davis Parkman that Mr. Stevens violated the terms of his probation, which included anger management counseling.

"If we had known, we feel like the outcome would have been different," Ms. Morgan said.

Instead, Mr. Stevens walked free on bail. Authorities say two months later he shot ex-girlfriend Gloria McKie to death in the front yard of her rural Aiken County home.

"The frustration we have is the need for connectivity among law enforcement," Ms. Morgan said. "In theory, computers should do a better job than we do - they connect you. Regretfully, government agencies are among the last to be connected."

In this information age, prosecutors say, the criminal justice system in South Carolina remains woefully behind the times. While law enforcement relies on the National Crime Information Center, a computerized database of wanted individuals and criminal records, some say that the database is only as reliable as the information that makes it onto the system.

"I agree that we need better communications," said 11th Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers, the chief prosecutor for Edgefield, Lexington, McCormick and Saluda counties. "Sometimes a defendant will have charges in Lexington and have others in Saluda, and it's difficult for us to even know about it."

A judge might not even have a defendant's full criminal record in front of him during sentencing because of gaps in technology, Mr. Myers said.

The problem, judicial officials say, is a lack of uniformity among magistrates, court clerks, corrections and probation officers, police and sheriffs with regard to the information that's entered into computer systems and accessible to all.

The solution, according to the state Judicial Department's technology director, is an integrated case-management system that follows defendants from the issuance of a warrant all the way to prison and probation.

Joan Assey has been charged with helping realize one of the main goals of South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal: bringing criminal justice in South Carolina into the computer age.

"The chief justice really thought technology could deliver faster, better justice," Ms. Assey said. "We had 14 disparate case-management systems, and none of them talking to each other. It seemed different agencies were entering the same data 15 to 20 times. The opportunity for error was rampant. We need one case management system for the whole state."

With a $15 million federal grant, the state Judicial Department developed case-management software and wired a handful of rural clerk of courts' offices with laptops, local area networks and e-mail.

While officials concede that any new system costs money, they say an all-encompassing network would mean greater efficiency, cutting down on redundant data entry and ensuring better justice.

"In hard budget times, it behooves us to look at ways we can do more with less," Ms. Morgan said. "Do we want to cut wood with a handsaw or a chainsaw? We all know we can do better."

Reach Stephen Gurr at (803) 648-1394.

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