For this kind of project, given the stakes involved (e.g. a defendant's freedom), why would you want to use the brand-new framework-of-the-month that the cool kids are using?

I'm all for using the right tool for the job. WebForms code is not possible / extremely difficult to unit test.

The actual codebase itself may be pretty old so WebForms isn't a surprise - the SLN file indicates it was saved with Visual Studio 2010 (https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-software/blob/338a1b86...).

Possibly they shouldn't be using bug ridden trash either seems like a compromise ought to be possible.

Webforms are not trash, just very annoying to use as a developer.

For something contracted this is the norm. We used to send out estimates for writing tests and clients never wanted to pay for them. I've found projects just as buggy with tests and now I only write them for code that's getting heavily reused.

Webforms is likely a client request as well, but also keep in mind that as shitty as webforms is it let's you throw functionality together faster than almost anything else. Again proly contractors

The funny comments others mentioned is another clue that this was not developed internally. I miss that about being a consulting company... The client is usually hiring you because they have no idea what they're doing so rest assured nobody there will ever look at the code.