BRB's Public Records Blog

Online Court Records on Statewide Judicial Systems

Every state has a judicial branch that oversees that state’s trial and appellate court system. The agency's name will vary, but it is often known as the Administration Office of the Courts (AOC) or State Court Administrator’s Office.  

Knowing about this agency and its online services is important because more counties and courts are online via AOC sites than from the individual county-based systems. Consider these overall statistics about states’ judicial systems:

• 28 States Offer Online Access to Both Civil and Criminal Records
• 4 States Offer Access to Only Online Civil Records
• 16 States Have Online Access to Neither

A search from one of these court systems can be a particularly useful criminal record search tool in those states that do not permit a search at the state criminal records repository agency.

Of course, these court systems can be useful in those states that do offer access to the state criminal records repository agency because often the court data is usually much more current than from the repository – especially when not submitting fingerprints.

But just because the records are online - does that mean this site is the primary source for record searching?  The answer is a very strong  “no.”

These Systems are Not Created Equal - Know the State-by-State Variations

Anyone conducting research online must be aware that the value of a “statewide” court search varies by state. Consider these evaluation points:

• Is there a cost? Some systems offer free and paid search options. While many of the free searches are good, the adage “you get what you pay for” can certainly apply here.
• Is the search a statewide search? Some systems are said to be statewide, however, all counties may not be on the system.
• Is the throughput posted and is there uniformity? For example, one county may have cases dating back seven years, while another county may have only two years of history.
• Are Identifiers shown? The lack of identifiers to properly identify a subject varies widely from state-to-state. A lack of this is especially apparent in the free access search systems. Additionally, in some places verifiers that were previously available have been removed in recent years.
• And perhaps the most important evaluation point: Is an online search equivalent to searching onsite? The level of your due diligence and need for accuracy will determine if using an online site, that is in reality a supplemental search, is sufficient for your needs. This, of course, is true for ANY online site for ANY type of public record.

In-depth details about each state’s court system including a link to access each AOC database are contained in the Criminal Record Sources subscription product and in the Public Record Research System at https://brbpublications.com/.  

Do you need to know more about the online-onsite equivalency of a state’s AOC database or Criminal Repository? We have the only Online-Onsite Equivalency Matrix. Learn more at https://brbpublications.com/subscribers/criminal-record-sources.

California Kills $10 Search Fee Bill

A proposal submitted by the California Adminsitrative Office of the Courts and attached to a budget "trailer bill" was killed by the legislation today - June 14, 2013.

The original proposal would have implemented a $10 fee to simply view a case file and was attached to the governor's budget with no open discussion.  Once known, there was a huge push back from the public. In addtion, many members of the State Assembly and Senate opposed the trialer bill. 

Fees are set by statute, see  www.courts.ca.gov/documents/feetable09.doc. The last changes made for record searches occurred in early 2006. There is no search fee unless the search takes more than 10 minutes and then the fee is $15.00. Certification is $25.00 per document plus copy fee; copies are $.50 per page.

California Court Record Fees Changes Pending

California Court Record Fees Changes Pending

The grim financial state of the California Judiciary is well known. In an effort to help remedy this situation, the CA Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has submitted legislation that alters the fee structure for public access to court records.

The current law, part of Government Code Section 70627(c), states if a search of records or files conducted by a court employee takes more than 10 minutes, a $15.00 fee is charged.  The new law changes this to be $10.00 per name searched or per file or per other information requested, regardless of the time spent by the clerks office. Thus if one does a name search and there are 4 case files to review, the fee would be $50.00. Also, the new law raises the court copy fee from $.50 a page to $1.00 per page.

The judiciary used closed door committee sessions to write this law change and submitted the text to the governor's finance department who in turn will add this as a "trailer" to existing budget-related legislation.

An interesting article about this development was written by Courthousenews.com. According to the story, evidently a lobbyist with the AOC stated the trailer bill is aimed at "data miners." This statement would indicate the AOC (or at least this lobbyist) is not very knowledgeable about how the "court record food chain" works - meaning the lobbyist is not familiar with from who and why the majority of court record requests are generated. 

The bill language can be viewed at the CA Deptment of Finance  site at www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/trailer_bill_language. Click on Corrections and General Government [200-299], then view number 204, and scroll down to page 4.

 

Pending California Court Closures and Cutbacks

Four public notices and requests for public input were recent filed by county Superior Courts.

Kings County
Reduction in hours and staffing at Corcoran location effective May 13, 2013.

Los Angeles County
Closure of the Beacon Street Courthouse in San Pedro and reassignment of cases to Long Beach effective on or about April 22, 2013.

San Bernardino County
Closure and re-assignment of cases effective May 6, 2013 for courts in Barstow, Big Bear, and Needles.

Tehama County
Closure of Corning location and re-assignment of cases to Red Bluff effective June 30, 2013.

Under Government Code section 68106, courts must provide written notice to the public and to the Judicial Council at least 60 days before putting into effect a plan to reduce costs by closing courtrooms or clerks' offices or reducing clerks' office hours. The council must post all such notices on this Internet site within 15 days of receiving them. These notices may be viewed at www.courts.ca.gov/12973.htm.

 

News at Courts and Recorder's Offices & Motor Vehicle News

Alabama

Effective October 1, 2012, Chief Justice Chuck Malone entered an Order mandating that all attorneys must e-file their documents in civil, domestic relations, and child support cases. Per this Order and the Administrative Procedures, the Circuit Clerks' offices will eventually go completely paperless in civil cases.
See www.alacourt.gov/pdfppt/EfilingAdminOrder%209-6-12_001.pdf

Colorado

This month Eagle County is in the process of moving to a new software provider for searching recorded documents. The site has new options available, see http://acclaim.eaglecounty.us/.

 

California

California counties continue to close court sites or cut back on operations. The Kings County Superior Court location in Lemoore was closed last month. Also all Kings County court location hours have been permanently cut back. All clerk's windows are now open 8AM-4PM Monday thru Thursday and 8AM-Noon on Friday. In addition the Court intends to close locations in Avenal and Corcoran and reduce hours and staff at Hanford over the Christmas week.

As many other CA counties have already done, effective November 5, 2012 the San Diego Superior Court will only provide court reporters in criminal felony, family, and juvenile matters during regular court hours. Official court reporters will not be available in probate or other civil matters. Also, effective December 28, 2012, official court reporters will only be available in family matters for Domestic Violence Restraining Order hearings, Contempt hearings, and Request for Order hearings of 40 minutes or less.

Effective November 1, 2012, Glenn County will be increasing their recording fees by $1.00 per document title.

Oregon

OJIN is the acronym for the online program provides court case information from Circuit Courts in all 36 counties in the state. The Oregon Judicial Department OJD is working to migrate the online platform from OJIN to a designated vendor (Odyssey). The purpose is to create a more modern, user-friendly environment for record access, compared to the OJIN command line based system.

 

South Dakota

The South Dakota Unified Judicial System (UJS) recently changed the county serving as the centralized mail request center for statewide criminal record searches. The UJS asks that all mail requests be directed to the processing center at: Jackson County Clerk of Court, PO Box 128, Kadoka, SD 57543. 605-837-2122, fax 605-837-2120. Note the UJS will periodically change the designated county to operate the processing center. Be sure to call first.

Washington (State) Driving Records

Effective October 1, 2012, the fee for a driving record in Washington (state) increased from $10.00 to $13.00. This fee increase affects all access methods and record types. There is no fee increase passed along to vehicle records or collision reports.

 

New Release of ACD in the Works

The AAMVA Code Dictionary (ACD) is a translation table used to exchange conviction and withdrawal information between the states' driver licensing authorities. The AAMVA Code Dictionary (ACD) is copyrighted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).

 

A primary function of the ACD is to enable the state to use the Commercial Driver's License Information System (CDLIS) to exchange convictions and withdrawals. Other applications, such as the Problem Driver Pointer System (PDPS), use these codes as well. Also, many states use the ACD to indicate out-of-state convictions on driving records.

 

The most recent version is Release 4.0.0. However, the AAMVA is now in the process of finalizing a newer release with fairly significant changes. There will likely be 5 new codes added, 6 codes retired and several dozen with changes. At this point, the changes are still subject to final approval and have not yet been formally released. Note: the AAMVA has provided BRB with an overview of these probable changes for our subscribers at www.mvrdecoder.com.

Two Federal Courts Moving

Iowa

Both the U.S. District and U.S. Bankruptcy Courts located in Cedar Rapids Iowa are moving into a new court building on November 5, 2012. The new address is 111 7th Street SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401-2101. The main phone numbers for both courts remain the same: however, the inside personnel individual numbers will likely change.  The Court has been in temporary quarters since a flood destroyed the old court building approx. 5 years ago.

Utilization of and access to the U.S. Bankruptcy’s Post Office Box address (PO Box 74890) will discontinue on Wednesday, October 31, 2012. Paper filings intended to be delivered via the United States Postal Service to the Cedar Rapids division of Court with a mailing/postmark date occurring on or after October 25, 2012, should be addressed to the new address.

Texas

The Austin Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas is moving into a new court building on December 3, 2012. The new address is 501 W. 5th Street, Austin, TX, 78701. The phone numbers remain the same. Note the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Austin is NOT moving.

SAM and the Excluded Part List System (EPLS)

At the end of July 2012, access to the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) was taken over by a new system. EPLS, along with Federal Agency Registration (FedReg), the Central Contractor Registration (CCR), and the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), were migrated into the new System for Award Management also known as SAM (https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM) At this time, SAM is overwhelmed and record searching on the EPLS is still available at https://www.epls.gov/. Indications are this search feature will eventually be moved to SAM
 

Other free search federal government sites commonly used in background investigations remain unchanged, including:
   Denied Persons List - www.bis.doc.gov/dpl/default.shtm
   Unverified List - www.bis.doc.gov/enforcement/unverifiedlist/unverified_parties.html
   Debarred Parties List - www.pmddtc.state.gov/compliance/debar.html
 
For a BRB links list of other useful federal search sites see:
http://www.brbpublications.com/freeresources/pubrecsitesSearch.aspx?subcat=Other+Useful+Federal+Sites

Civil Case Limits Raised in 3 Louisiana Counties

 

Through several 2012 legislative acts, three cities have individually increased the upper $$ limit on civil lawsuits. The limit increase means the affected cases do not need to be filed in the more costly and time consuming District Court.

The City Court of Slidell (St. Tammany Parish) increased its limit from $35,000 to $50,000. The Abbeyville and Kaplan City Courts (both in Vermilion Parish) raised their limit from $25,000 to $35,000. The increases took effect August 1, 2012. 
 

View a chart of all legislative changes affecting City Courts at www.lcaanet.org/images/2012_Legislative_Changes_City_Court_6-14-12_.pdf.

City Courts are courts of record and handle misdemeanors, limited civil, juvenile, traffic and evection. The amount of civil is concurrent with the District Court based where the amount in controversy does not exceed $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the court.

New Rules at San Luis Obispo County, CA - Superior Court

Effective June 1, 2012 the San Luis Obispo Superior Court will no longer conduct public record searches of the criminal record docket at the public counter and will only accept written requests. The requests can be submitted by mail or placed in a drop box. There is no charge for the research if the research takes less than 10 minutes. There is a $.50 fee per page for record copies.

Interestingly, on the announcement document the court stated it made this decision pursuant to CRC Rule 2.507 which governs electronic access and not the manual access process which this affects. Yet earlier this year court the court did alter the electronic access by the public. The court removed the public's ability to view the record index electronically on the public access terminal UNLESS the requester is an attorney. Hence, the court blocked the biggest user group of the criminal record docket from viewing it electronically. And now they have removed immediate counter service to employers and their representatives as well.

If you would like to express your opinion to the court, the court's CEA is [email protected] and the presiding judge is [email protected].

Free Copies of 2011 PRRN Membership Directory for Special Distribution

While supplies last, BRB Publications is providing copies of the 2011 PRRN Membership Directory free of charge to interested organizations for distribution at meetings or conventions. Public Record Retriever Network (PRRN) is the organization that set the first Industry Standards for the retrieval of public record documents and whose members abide by a Code of Professional Conduct.
 
The Membership Directory is 240 pages and organized in two sections. The first shows retrievers by state and county, indicating on-site researchers who visit courthouses and recorder's offices. The second section provides a full profile of each member.
 
This offer is only for mass distribution by organizations. If you are interested, please reach Mike Sankey at 800-929-3811 or [email protected].