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Sunday, March 16, 2008

Ind. Courts - "Vanderburgh court records move to the Web"

Kate Braser of the Evansville Courier & Press reports today:

After years of planning, Vanderburgh County officials have approved a deal that will make court records available to the public on the Internet.

The records should be accessible online by the end of summer.

The deal means people who regularly squeeze into the cramped Room 219 of the Vanderburgh County Courthouse to look up a court record on one of the six public access computers will be able do it from home.

The Richmond, Ind.-based company Doxpop already is providing online records systems for 43 Indiana counties, including Spencer, Warrick, Daviess and Perry.

Rich Sinex, business development manager for Doxpop, said he believes the company's services will be offered in 50 of Indiana's 92 counties by the end of this year.

For about five years, Vanderburgh Superior Court Judge J. Douglas Knight has helped lead the effort to make the county's court records available online.

Knight said that according to the terms of the deal, Doxpop will pay for the expenses of setting the system up for the county, and then recoup those costs through user fees.

Sinex said he hopes to have the services available in Vanderburgh County sometime in July.

"The free access is often sufficient for the person who has very occasional need to look at court records," Sinex explained. "For tracking the parents' estate or domestic relations case or traffic infraction, free access will probably do, but for a person interested in any serious professional use of court records, one of the subscription plans really would be necessary."

A side-bar to the story provides more information about access.

For background see this ILB entry from Sept. 24, 2006 and this one from Oct. 9, 2005.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 16, 2008 02:15 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts