Los Angeles County UPDATE: July 26, 2021 (see below)

A-Check is following recent news that a number of California counties are removing (or have already removed) the DOB from public court case indexes, in response to a legal decision against the Riverside Superior Court where the judge ruled that court records are improperly maintained.

As a result, public facing court research within impacted counties is “name match only,” “name and YOB only” and in some counties the public access option has been removed altogether, forcing researchers to rely on clerks for searches which could previously be performed online.  Consumer Reporting Agencies like A-Check are required to perform additional research to further confirm and validate cases. As you might guess, this causes increased or indefinite delay in completing criminal record searches because A-Check requires 3 identifiers to authenticate the identity of search information.

In light of these developments—and as additional counties may begin to follow this direction—A-Check will work closely with courts as we continue to serve all clients to the best of our ability.

IMPACTED COUNTIES

Fresno, Kern – Search conducted by name only. All name matches require clerk assistance, and delays expected (and noted within candidate files) for search results.

Riverside – Search conducted by name only. All name matches require clerk assistance, and delays expected (and noted within candidate files) for search results.

Ventura – Ability to search by name online has been altogether removed from the online index. This county is now fully clerk assisted, and researchers are currently restricted from courts. We are reaching out daily to determine how they intend to assist with the data, and delays are noted within candidate files for search results.

ADDITIONAL IMPACTED COUNTIES (Now or in the near future)

Santa Clara
Tulare
Yuba
San Bernardino

UPDATE:

The Los Angeles Public Access site now restricts research filtering by name and year of birth only. A-Check researchers will need to verify DOB first to confirm a full name/DOB birth match before requesting court documents. As you might imagine, clerks already have severe COVID-19 restrictions regarding public contact. They will now be managing DOB verification requests in additional to existing workloads. Files with a possible match will be noted with an extended TAT and A-Check will continue to adjust as we refine our process with clerks in this high-volume county.

If you have any questions about this information, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here and always happy to help.