closed court case information?

Question

After a criminal case in closed, is it possible for the public to review the trial transcript or pertinient information regarding the case? If so, where is this information located?

Answer 1

Courts usually have the original court files stored in vaults. Public can request copies, but you'll have to pay. Ask the court records where the particular file you are interested in is located. Some of the info may be sealed.

Answer 2

Yes, it is possible however, there is one exception which is rare. First many court transcripts are not on-line yet. Although you will find exceptions.

Generally to get a copy of the transcripts, which are usually without charge, it may be necessary to enter the system through the government website of the court where the trial took place.

This means you need to find out whether or not if it was a State\Provincial trial or a Federal Trial. The easy way to do this is to look up news stories about the trial and they usually mention the court jurisdiction -- The trial is being held in State Court Jurisdiction 17.".

If not investigation both the State and Federal Dockets will give you the answer. The Dockets will read like you have seen on television. "The State of Tennessee versus John Doe" or "The Government of the United States of America versus Jane Doe." If you have searched and still not found out, then both systems have a "court clerk" system and it is their job to find the trial you are looking for.

There will be a procedure for either obtaining a full copy of the transcripts or reading them in the Library of the Court. It is usually only a form which you sign and date.

In a few jurisdictions if they ask you to read the transcripts in the Library it means the court will ask for a fee for a copy of the entire transcript. You can ask for certain pages or the entire thing to be photocopied). You can make an electronic copy by scanning the printed copy if you so wish.

Once you have located the correct Government url, on the website there will be a section on the Courts. Courts are divided into different jurisdictions within each government but this will not affect finding the transcript. For example if you find the Court section and it leads directly to the different jurisdictitions without any explanations regarding procedures, just open one at random and it will tell you the procedure regarding how to get transcripts.

As mentioned above, under certain conditions a Judge can order the transcripts closed -- they can not be made available to the public. However, if you have a legal need to see these transcripts or you just want to see them, you can challenge the Judge's decision. To do this you will need to hire a lawyer and your lawyer will file a motion with the Judge's oversight committee or a higher court to review the facts in camera (you won't be able to hear why the transcripts were closed) and then the Judge's decision will usually be reversed.

If the trial involved a minor victim then the Appellate Division will order the transcripts released but still can order the identity of the minor be protected and will be blacked out. The name of the Defendent, the verdict and his sentence can never be blacked out.

This is constitutional rights issue so the courts can not arrest, put to trial, convict and incarcerate your Aunt Martha for armed robbery when all she did was to criticise the government. This has been written into the Constitution so Aunt Martha's the government can not hide what happened to Aunt Martha from her family, friends and the public. This protection springs from the fact that most governments 250 years ago could conduct secret trials on trumped up charges to silence dissenters.

If the records are sealed because of an ongoing investigation may be compromised, then the appellate division or oversight board must turn over the transcripts over a reasonable length of time -- usually a year is the maximum.

Some Judges order the transcripts to be sealed to protect family members of the defendant from having embarrassing information not directly related to the crime made public. But this decision is almost always reversed if a motion is made to the Appellate Division. The most the Appellate Division could do is order some information blacked out but unlike minors, the decision to black-out information can be challenged and the challenge is usually successful (just ask some celbreties).

Sometimes government law enforcement agencies ask that transcripts to be sealed if there is an ongoing investigation involving national security or investigations of other serious crimes, but again the Constitution mandates that national security can not result in the transcripts never be unsealed. A time must be set for the transcripts to be made public.

The Military does not use the civil court system and transcripts may be more difficult to be obtained, but under the law, a civil court judge can overrule, any Military Court judge without any recourse by the Military. The moment a motion is filed in a civil court to have a Military trial's transcripts to be made public, sooner or later it will have to happen.

Even a Military crime that took place outside the United States, under a law whose name I now forget, transcripts of any court martial and the decision rendered have to be made available to the public. The Act was passed to prevent "drumhead" trials by the Military. It guarantees due process for Service men and women

In short, there is always a way and it always will happen, but there can be legal delays and exceptions about some information are made about minors.

Answer 3

Usually the transcript is not typed unless the defendant intends to take an appeal. The court record is in the form of a stenotype tape. If the defendant decides to take an appeal, the court reporter's stenotype tape is transcribed.

In some circumstances, the judge will write an opinion for the case. However, it is more likely that he will just sign an order.

Contact the Clerk of the Criminal Court of the county in which the trial took place for additional information. The fact that a person was convicted, the nature of the charges against them, and sentencing information will be on file in the Clerk of Criminal Court's office.

Answer 4

Generally, unless the record is sealed, the transcript of the trial can be requested either directly from the court, or if the court no longer has the transcript on file, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the appropriate judicial records office (state or federal).