California Public Records

There are traffic citations issued by state highway patrol (CHP), county sheriffs and city police. In some counties, you can look up information online. It's whether that particular agency makes it accessible online or not. Within county webpages, there are instructions for public record copy requests, which includes traffic violations. Larger counties are more likely to have better public search services.

The California courts have a self help webpage on how to legally change a name. There's a part about filing the name change where it says "The clerk will stamp your forms with “Filed,” keep the original and return the copies to you", which means the clerk can provide copies. Also, in most cases, the "Order to Show Cause for Change of Name" form needs to be published in a newspaper. The court should have a list of the ones which publishes the legal notices. You can see more information about it on that page.

The county superior court where the divorce was filed.

The information that you will see when searching the California department of correction is a line that shows the inmate's age, in addition to the current location, admission date and cdcr number. The age is helpful before you look for the date of birth. If the person you are searching has a common name, the age will let you sort through the ones that are off from the current age. It will be able to narrow down and tell if you're looking at the right date of birth and person. Finding records is about digging them up all over the net, even at physical locations like the courthouse. Put the inmate search, birthday search and a people finders search all together and pinpoint the date if you can.

If you don't have the lawsuit/case filing with the name on it, you can do a court records search under your own name, depending on which county, it can be free to the public.

You can contact the dmv, but there are policies such as a minimum damage amount to qualify.

Do you know where or which county the real estate property is located? Land ownership documents are generally at county registrars office and legal filings at county courts.

You can try to conduct an address history search. Should be easier if the spouse’s name also appears in that search. The last address under both names is a good place to take a look.

You will need to look in the courthouse where the suit was filed. If you are not familiar with court filings, California's judicial branch has a webpage on the basics of filing and records including forms. Look for the self help tab and then go into the divorce or separation page. Under the same self help tab you will see "find court resources", that page will take you to individual superior/county courts and their online services, many counties (most likely not all) have case search openly available online.

Give the middle name and dob.

You have the same challenges as someone looking for a person with a common name, that so many others share. There are obvious ways to omit the wrong person, for example, middle name/initial, date of birth and location. When you are searching, it is a collective of the information which helps the most. A list of all past residences/addresses which come up under individuals is rarely identical and can be used to tell them apart. You will also pick up more information as your search goes on, and will eventually become easier to individualize seemingly similar records.

You will need to request them from various departments and entities. For example, to get court records you will need to check the courts' online services and see if you can request them online. There are services that will go to the court and get them if it's not online. It's hard to imagine a single place or entity having everything.

Try local periodicals, which can be found in libraries

In California, property information and copies of deeds can be requested from the county registrars/recorder in which the land is located. Different counties have different offices with its own sites. The property search webpage from the state will connect you to individual registrars offices. You can check and see if the particular county office has walk-ins where searches can be performed at their physical location in real time, just to view the information.

Where was the divorce? In which county? Never heard of tonga! You can try the California department of Health, but they only accept mail in requests according to their site. You can look up a list of County Registrars and Recorders on the CDPH website and see where you can walk in and what to do about getting the record from either courts or recorders' offices.

By conducting an alias search, the doc and arrest information from places or the police department's inmate search. Former convicts that are on parole or released can also be searched. These various offenders lists descriptions of tattoos, appearance and known aliases. All these searches are free and can be done online from california's department of corrections and county/city jails.

There are different kinds of documentation on a death, depending on if it is a natural death, expected death ie from an illness, an accidental death or a death due to criminal intent. Each have a distinct criteria of record keeping. You will need to know the county of the death, and go from there either contacting vital statistics to get a death certificate, the coroner for an autopsy report, or the investigating agency. Sorry for your loss. Also if the death is due to criminal intent, then contact the District Attorneys office for a number of the victim advocates office.

Which city is it in? Local periodicals carry stories of their local area. The library closest to it may be able to be more help when it comes to these types of events. You can also look up on your own to see who the previous owners were and look up deaths by name and time. That will narrow the timeline to which publication to look up. Also, you can look up the law as to the what the seller’s responsibility was to inform the buyer and does it cover all owners. The sellers may have purchased the home from previous owners which disclosed of a death.

The information is provided from external independent sources, generally government sites which are custodians of public records. Public documents are recorded and maintained by numerous government agencies throughout California at various levels. Registrar offices in California counties record, maintain and provide copies of deeds, marriage certificates and many other documents. Public record sites serve as a directory to directly connect to departments and entities which provide a specific type of data or official documentation.

Check the unclaimed property website in the state she was in the accident. It should be at the county clerks office as unclaimed property

Deeds in California are maintained by county recorders offices (registrar-recorder-county clerk)across the state. To be specific as to how and where, you’ll need to mention the county. However, most have the same policies. Deeds can be requested and viewed as they are considered public record. The registrar’s office in Los Angeles, most likely the largest in California, does not provide an online search to the public, they recommend to visit the physical location in the city of Norwalk. Other counties such as Orange allows a public index search, which means you see minimal information and not the entire recorded deed. The index search for OC can only be conducted with a name, doc. type, doc. number or recording date.

Court procedures, cost and policy can vary from one venue to another, however, court transcripts are public record and available to request by anyone. To answer it specifically, one would have to know which court it was in. Generally, you will need information which you probably already have or can get with a case search. You will need to know the name of the court reporter, case number, date of proceeding and name of judge or department. For Riverside county court, a form is provided for the public to use and request the transcripts online or by mail. The court reporter’s name can be found in the minute order for that hearing date.

All records do not come from the same place, some may have common providers, but there’s not a single place that has all the records, therefore, no one place can eliminate them. There may be services which do that, or claim to do so. If you find the source, you will see what you need to remove or strike erroneous data. Once the record/information is out from the initial source, it can take a life of its own and go to many other databanks or work in conjunction with other data. Removal of information and its procedures is specific to the type of record and its custodians or departments.

Open public record and meeting statutes, sunshine laws, freedom of information act are just a few ways to describe the same thing, the right to request and obtain copies from the government. Although the federal government was not the first to face transparency issues, when the federal freedom of information act passed, many states modeled their laws after the federal government's.

As states pass their own public records and open meetings laws, some are more favorable toward transparency and others privacy. However, these statutes are amended to meet new technologies for methods of obtaining information. An example of this scenario is when there were debate regarding government employee emails and whether this type of information is subject to disclosure.

Statutes are now better in tune with technology. There have been many statutes passed in recent years to better serve the public’s need, specially when there’s an investigation into a government department. The California Public Records Act (CPRA) was passed 1968 by the state's voters and more recently proposition 59 in 2004. Groups, organizations and concerned citizens feel that open records promotes government accountability. These laws have many agencies appointing a public information officer in charge of requests.

When requestors believe that the agency is in violation of public record laws, they go to court. Many of these cases set a precedence for related upcoming issues. There are many gray areas, but the public information officers role is not to determine whether or not open records laws apply.

Here are a few organizations: National Freedom of Information Coalition, First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael, Californians Aware in Carmichael, CA, First Amendment Project.

Safety and liability are a major concern when dealing with personal information, whether is it private or public. One piece of information may be public, such as the address, but when the department of motor vehicles puts it with a person's name, it can become a problem of intrusion for the individual.

Different departments can enforce their own policies as long as they are not interfering with the freedom of information statutes. Another example are deeds that show a person's spouse or family trust, therefore, agencies need sometimes set their own policies. Electronic databases are not an exception. Many court records that are available online contain personal information that the agency would rather not be easily released. Although these records are deemed public, a requestor can be asked for a permissible purpose for the information. The data can be modified to have portions omitted from being released. Similar to how court records were blacked out.

If you consider others looking at your public information spying, the answer is obviously yes. How far can a member of the public that I don’t even know go into my records? How much can they find out? How do I know when some is looking at my information? The answers are no longer as obvious to most people, even when it comes to public records.

How much can be found out from public records? The most accurate answer will come from you conducting a search of your own records, or hiring a professional to do so. Conducting a search on ourselves gives us the advantage of not looking for records, such as a criminal history, when we’re well aware that they will come back blank, so no need to bother and waste money. However, don’t be easily fooled into getting too comfortable, this is a only minor set back, not to mention that the person searching may be better skilled in finding records than you are.

Do we know all the information out there about you? You will have few of your peers say “Well, you already know all the information about yourself out there, what are you looking for?”. Not necessarily! Self background checks are conducted for just that reason. Many conducting a check on themselves, whether on their own at home from a computer or a hired service, are surprised at the amount of information that’s out there. Even after tireless efforts being made fighting identity theft, a wealth of information is still readily available. On one side you have privacy protections and on other side the people’s right to access public records.

When does the right to public records interfere with individual privacy? Individual privacy excludes companies and public entities as they do not have the same protections. Privacy and the right to access public records do cross each other’s paths. Financial information is protected but bankruptcy filings can be requested from the courts, is everything within the record open to the public? Can the public see assets listed within a divorce case file? There are a multitude of questions in regard to privacy, and cases should be looked at individually. Adding to the problem is erroneous information about you that’s out there.

What are my options? Each individual’s case can be different and there is no single quick answer for everyone. The information available can vary greatly from one person to another. However, there are tips which can be helpful to the average person. Begin with conducting a fishing expedition of your own records of anything and everything which may possibly contain your name, tel. number, address, business/company, affiliations/association with others and social networks. Remember that information about you can be in places where you’d never imagine. Are you skilled in looking and finding records? If not, hire private services for a better thorough job.

The Los Angeles county website shows a list of press releases by public office and individual government department. The first through the fifth district press releases of each supervisor is listed along with department from the assessor’s office to the recorder’s office. These press releases are a means for the department or council members to communicate with the public and get their message out. The assessor’s office is a great example of one of many purposes of their press releases. In a press release the assessor’s office discusses the issue of declining home prices and their assessments. The press release offers details regarding the approach the department will be taking. The district attorney’s office press releases lists charges and arrest within its jurisdiction dating as far back as 2003 when accessing the department’s archives. The clerk recorders office releases information of election results and other voter events. Other agencies such as the California highway patrol and many other law enforcement departments have live incident reports.

Stockton will be the largest city in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy to date. Amongst main contributing factors that lead the city’s Chapter 9 filing are lower revenues from property taxes after the housing market downfall. Other factors in the city’s path to bankruptcy were loans to build hotels, a promenade, marina and other amenities to attract conventions and businesses. A surplus of homes were also built to meet a hopeful and optimistic future that have raised the amounts that residents and builders having loans that aren’t being paid and property that is not producing income. The city not only suffers the second highest rate of foreclosures in the country, it is also the second most violent city in the nation. 190 million dollars were spent on Stockton building the marina, city hall, city parking garages and an entertainment center. There have been cuts to the city’s budget such as cutting the police force by 25%, fire and rescue by almost a third and pay reduction, lowering other city workers by 43%. Bond holders, retirees and contractors are to feel most of the cuts after the bankruptcy. The river port city voted and passed a law regarding debt mediation adding an important tool to city officials bargaining. Projections show the city’s deficit to be between $20 to $38 million dollars in 2012-2013. Incorporated on July 23, 1850, Stockton is located in San Joaquin County and is California’s 13th largest city. There have been negative press articles about the city by Forbes naming Stockton as the most miserable city in the United States. The Central Connecticut State University named it the least literate in the county in 2005 and 2006. The county government, unified school district and medical center are the city’s largest employers.

Custodian of records background checks. Starting from January 1st 2011, penal code 11102.2(b) requires 'custodians of records' to undergo a background check. All custodian or records must pass a finger print based search of criminal records processed by the DOJ. Individuals applying for custodian of records will be rejected if a history of felonies, offenses connected to fraud, deception or other indications of dishonesty are found. The application process requires applying agencies to complete annual notification, application for confirmation and a live scan request form and pay the processing fees by the department of justice and the federal bureau of investigations. Every agency, whether state or federal, is enjoined to appoint a minimum of one custodian of records with the responsibility and duty to satisfy requests for information from the public under the law. This is to enforce the duties of government agencies in providing public records and have specific personnel appointed with the responsibility of these tasks. This is in efforts to eliminate past frustrations of 'getting the runaround' from department employees none of which being in charge of or responsible for lawful public requests. These regulations are in place addressing the responsibility of a government agency regarding their departments employees. There are many other laws in place in efforts to facilitate the public's request for records such as guidelines for reasonable agency fees and timeliness to respond. There is a certain amount of time allotted to respond to requests. Since there are many types of records and the burden of providing them can be time consuming, guidelines can vary greatly. To maintain a balanced budget, fees are requested or cutbacks would affect the process.