Here at BRB Publications we constantly verify the policies and procedures of government agencies regarding access to public records.
Recently we received a perplexing email communication from the office of the Clerk of the District Court in Douglas County Nebraska. According to Mr. Matthew Warta, Clerk of the District Court - Accounting:
"A significant change has occurred in our procedures regarding criminal cases. Due to changes in State Statues regarding what can and cannot be disseminated, the Clerk of the District Court will no longer provide record searches at any price, and cannot verify charges or dispositions on court cases. The public is still welcome to view the records on site or online and draw their own conclusions."
Mr. Warta went on to suggest that criminal searches can be done at the local level at the County Sheriff and the Omaha Police Department.
I responded by email to Mr. Warta that this is the first we have heard of a clerk not willing to verify questionable dispositions and asked him to please quote the specific statute or law change that mandates this new position. This was his reply:
"There isn't a specific statue prohibiting us from doing so, but the system provided to the courts in Nebraska does not provide the types of criminal background reports that the above mentioned entities have. Certain charges and dispositions cannot be disseminated if a certain amount of time has passed, others have to have certain documentation provided by a defendant to disseminate them.
When concerns were brought to the State Court Administrator about changes to the computer system to accommodate these changes, we were informed that no change was planned at this time, as in their view the court system is not designed for this purpose. A decision was made that since State Patrol, Omaha Police and the Sheriff have systems designed to filter out those items and we do not that they should be referred to them because of liability concerns.
An example of a recent change I have offhand is Nebraska Revised Statute 29-3523."
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If you have any first hand experience on this matter at this court, I would love to hear from you. Mr. Warta is apparently from the accounting section and it could very well be that the clerk staff will help the public. By the way, I did a quick review of the NE Statute and it seemingly deals with criminal records at a criminal justice state repository, not necessarily public records at the court level.
The web page for Douglas County Clerk of Court is https://clerk.dc4dc.com/.
If you have any first hand experience on this matter at this court, I would love to hear from you. Mr. Warta is apparently from the accounting section and it could very well be that the clerk staff will help the public. By the way, I did a quick review of the NE Statute and it seemingly deals with criminal records at a criminal justice state repository, not necessarily public records at the court level.
The web page for Douglas County Clerk of Court is https://clerk.dc4dc.com/.
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