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.

San Luis Obispo Superior Court Cuts Criminal Record Services

With severe cutbacks in the budget and loss of staff, public record services for criminal records from the San Luis Obispo Superior Court is now virtually at a standstill. Employers, schools, landlords, and the general public have been denied most all criminal record requests for nearly a month since the court implemented a new case management system.

This is a "clerk searched" court. The criminal data is not online and the docket index is not available to the general public. There are five factors involved.

1. The court has a public access terminal which displays the basic criminal record index. However several years ago, the Court Executive Officer Susan Matherly moved the terminal to a back room and she will only allow the news media and attorneys access to this "public" terminal. All others, including the biggest users of public records (employers and their representatives) are denied access to the terminal and must submit lists.

2. Although the clerks will process criminal record requests at the window if the request is limited to one or two names or cases, all requests with more than two names have been held in limbo for four weeks. According to PRRN Member Judie Smith (who has over 1,000 name requests outstanding), the manager of the Criminal Department Karen Leibscher and Ms. Matherly both refuse to speak to her, or to other representatives processing work for employers, about the back log and when the requests will be completed.

3. As mentioned, the court recently instituted new case management system. This new system contains only open or current cases.  When the new system was installed, the clerks lost access to case details for historical cases on the record docket: the old system was shut down. For example, the clerks now only have access to the name and case number for closed cases. So in order to find details such as the charge, the disposition, sentencing, VOP, dates, etc., the paper case file must be pulled and viewed.

4. All closed case files are stored offsite, most files are several blocks away. Therefore per state regulations (see www.courts.ca.gov/documents/feetable09.doc), a fee of $15.00 is charged for each case file pulled since it will take more than 10 minutes to obtain.  For a great many requests/instances, this procedure and fee would not be necessary if the court had kept and made available the historical docket data. Because all case files now need to be pulled, the public is faced with a rather drastic fee increase for record searching in this county.

5. In regards to record requests originating from employers and landlords for background checks, these requests made to this court are highly regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and by CA Civil Code 1786. Plus, court data is only accessed and provided because of the expressed written consent of the consumer (who wants to be hired, etc.). The reality is the vast majority of the names are "clear" - meaning the record search shows no conviction. Thus, without the use of the terminal and historical docket index (which can provide the normal same day or 1 day turnaround time), the consumer who wishes to be hired now faces at least a 30 day delay in this county.

The Court has a new Presiding Judge- Dodie Harman. The court's phone number is 805-781-5143. The court's web page is http://slocourts.net.  

Kansas Driving Record Fee Increase

The fee for electronic access of Kansas motor vehicle records is increasing by $2.10 per record effective October 1, 2013.

For interactive processing for driver and vehicle records the fee increase is from $6.60 to $8.70.  For batch processing for driver and vehicle records the fee increase is from $6.00 to $8.10.  

Kansas also offers a monitoring system for employers to monitor commercial drivers. That fee also is increasing from $6.00 to $8.10 per driver.  

The electronic processing of Kansas motor vehicle records is through Kansas.gov, an affiliate of NIC. See www.kansas.gov/subscribers/services.

There is no fee increase for manually processed records, such as requests by mail or in person.

Michigan Raising Fees for Driving and Vehicle Records

Effective October 1, 2013, the Record Look-up Unit in the Driver and Vehicle Records Division of the Department of State is raising teh fee for driver and vehicle records by $1.00. The fee for a non-certified record or an electronic record will increase from $7.00 to $8.00. A certifed record will increase from $8.00 to $9.00. The fee also affects those entities participating in the state's notification and monitoring program for employers and instrunce companies - an increase from $7.00 to $8.00 when a record is generated.

See http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1627_8996-107635--,00.html.

Update California Record Access

Governor Brown Backs Down
According to news stories released today (June 20, 2013) by the Los Angeles Times, Governor Jerry Brown reversed his decision to sign a measure that would have allowed local government to opt out of critical provisions of the California Public Records Act.

  

This follows a vote today by the California Assembly which also reversed its position and decided to keep the status quo, for now.

  

There is talk of a possible amendment to insure access to public records remains the same, but the costs of supplying the records would be borne by local government without reimbursement by the state as they are now. So there are still conflicts on the horizon.

  

View the LA Times story here.

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.

 

Arizona Raising Court Fees

Fee changes are coming to many Arizona courts. Effective March 18, 2013 a series of fee increases are taking place for the AZ Superior Courts and Justice Courts. These increases affect both the filing of court cases and the access of court records.  Filing fees will increase between $2.00 and $8.00, depending on the type of court and type of filing. All record search and certification fees increase by $1.00; the Superior Court from $26 to $27, and the Justice Court from $24 to $25.

The Arizona Code of Judicial Administration gives the Supreme Court the ability to increases fees without legislative guidance. The increase however cannot exceed the percent of change in the U.S. Dept. of Labor Consumer Price Index.

A copy of the Administrative order for the Superior Court fees is found at www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/admcode/pdfcurrentcode/3-404_New_12-2012.pdf.

A copy of the Administrative Order for Justice Courts is found at www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/admcode/pdfcurrentcode/4-303_New_12-2012.pdf 

 

Search Tip

There is a particular idiosyncrasy in Arizona that one must be cognizant of when pulling public records. The text in the statute and administrative code calls for a fee if court personnel research when asked to locate a document (per year or source research). The word research is italicized and bolded because a number of  Justice Court clerks interpret the meaning of this word different than the Superior Court clerks. The Superior Court clerks will not charge a fee if a file number is given; they do not consider this as research. However many of the Justice Court clerks do consider the retrieval of a file when the case number is given as research and will charge this fee.  Hence the fee for many AZ Justice Courts to do a name search to find a file number then and to pull the physical file will increase from $48 to $50. Of course, if there are multiple cases, the fee grows higher.

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.

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

Free Driver License Status Checks

Motor vehicle records (driving records, title, registration, accident reports, etc.) are not public when the records contain personal information. A requester must have a permissible use per both federal and state law. However, some states do provide some useful records online, without personal identifiers, at no charge. The selected list below for a free search of a DL status is taken from The MVR Access and Decoder Digest.

Florida - https://services.flhsmv.gov/DLCheck/

Idaho - https://www.accessidaho.org/secure/itd/reinstatement/index.html

Kansas - https://www.kdor.org/DLStatus/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdlstatus%2fsecure%2fdefault.aspx

Massachusetts - https://secure.rmv.state.ma.us/LicInquiry/intro.aspx

Minnesota - https://dutchelm.dps.state.mn.us/dvsinfo/mainframepublic.asp

Nebraska - https://www.nebraska.gov/dmv/reinstatements/client.cgi

North Dakota - https://secure.apps.state.nd.us/dot/dlts/dlos/requeststatus.htm

Ohio - www.ohiobmv.com/abstract.stm

South Carolina - https://www.scdmvonline.com/DMVpublic/trans/DRecPoints.aspx

Washington - https://fortress.wa.gov/dol/dolprod/dsdDriverStatusDisplay/

West Virginia - http://www.transportation.wv.gov/dmv/Pages/dlverify.aspx

Wisconsin - https://trust.dot.state.wi.us/occsin/occsinservlet?whoami=statusp1

 

 

South Dakota Raises Fee for Court Record Searches

On March 20, 2012, the South Dakota Governor signed HB 1058. The new law will increase search fees charged to view or obtain Circuit Court records. The current $15.00 fee will increase to $20.00 as of Jan. 1, 2013, but the fee would return to $15.00 effective July 1, 2017. (HB1058 was actually a compromise - the original bill had an increase of $10.00.) The additional funds will be used to offset last year's budget cuts and to support an upgrade of the court's computerized case management system.

The $20.00 fee is for a search of statewide criminal and civil records, and also is applicable for local onsite requests to check individual court case files. View the bill at http://legis.state.sd.us/index.aspx.