Finding Court Records on the Web
Courts are a treasure trove of information for journalists -not just for reporters covering a trial or for someone investigating a known criminal. People who are in your story may have been sued, got divorced, testified as an expert witness or were reprimanded by their professional body.
Court records also have the advantage of being, well, court records - they are official documents from the justice system and you have a lot of latitude in quoting from them, even if you cannot always prove everything in them is true.
If your newsroom subscribes to QuickLaw or one of the other databases (or you have a lawyer friend who will do a quick search for you) you're in luck.
But more and more court records in Canada are now also online and searchable for free though the quantity and quality is uneven. A few words of caution right up front: there is an important distinction between criminal records and judicial decisions. The juicy criminal stuff --convictions, charges, search warrants -- are largely not available online, except in Quebec.
On the other hand, most judicial decisions and rulings are. So if the target of your investigation committed murder and never appealed, his guilty verdict may not be online. Same thing if he and his wife divorced amicably. But if someone appeals a conviction or takes a divorce to a higher court, the juicy details are often online. You just have to be lucky.
Also, many courts only have decisions posted for the last few years or perhaps back to the 1990s. Few have longer historical records online.
If you have a lawyer friend who can do search for you on QuickLaw -- www.lexisnexis.ca/newquicklaw-- that's the best way to get access to judicial databases.
For those who don't have legal buddies, below are some tips.
PROVINCE BY PROVINCE
Almost all provinces have their major courts (Court of Appeal, Superior Court) online - big cases, important decisions. Some of the juicier details on people can be found in lower courts (Provincial or Municipal Courts).
Several provinces have their family courts online - everything from divorce records to child abuse. In most (but not all) divorce cases, the full names are not there, but if you know enough details - place, date, the identity of the lawyers - it is not hard to get.
All child protection decisions shield the name of the minor -- but again, if a social worker or aggrieved parent or one of the lawyers gives you enough lead, you should be able to track the decision.
Small claims courts are a treasure trove to get the scoop on a dubious local car repair shop or to see how many times your local McDonald's restaurants have been sued.
Finally, some of the best story nuggets can come from the courts you don't often think of right away - such as professional bodies, human rights tribunals system. For example, decisions against doctors or police who violated accepted standards are often online; same with landlords who discriminate.
Labour tribunals can give you extensive details of a company or union you are investigating.
CANLII BEST PLACE FOR MAJOR SEARCHES
Almost all the provinces, list their courts on the same web page, but you have to visit each court web site separately to do a search. In other words, you can't search the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Provincial Court at the same time.
This is a problem, particularly if you are not sure where a court decision was made.
The solution is CANLII - the Canadian Legal Information Institute, shown below:
From its main website at www.canlii.org you can search all of the provincial and federal courts:
Or, if you click on a province's name, you can do a province-wide search.
Or simply select the court you are interested in.
You can find out the details of what CANLII stores - in particular the dates for how far back the court records go - at http://canlii.org/en/databases.html.
Be creative. Not just with CANLII but with your other court searches.
For example, don't just search for names. You can find story ideas. Put in search terms like "date rape" or "pitbull" and "bite" to find story ideas or leads.
If you're really bored one evening, put in "Porsche" and "divorce" to read about how some rich people have too much to fight about.
INTERNATIONAL SEARCHES
American criminal and judicial records are much more plentiful. You often have to pay, but you can get criminal records for most jurisdictions. See www.journalismnet.com/people/uscrime.htm for a list or pay-for and free services.
Cornell University offers a free search of federal court decisions.
The Public Library (at www.plol.org ) offers free search of the U.S. Supreme Court and cases from all 50 states back to 1997.
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records ) at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov is the US federal government's centralized site for electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records.
The beauty of PACER is that you can get the actual documents - indictments, pleas, sometimes some transcripts. You have to register and there is a charge per page (8 cents) - although no fee is apparently owed until a user accrues more than $10 worth of charges in a calendar year.
For British and Irish legal decisions, the UK equivalent of Canlii is called Bailii (British and Irish Public Legal Information) at www.bailii.org.
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