Full Text Search of US Court records

Data sources & coverage

• Commenters speculate records are scraped and aggregated from many disparate state, county, and federal systems, each with its own interface.
• For federal courts, people assume much of the content ultimately comes via PACER and RECAP / Free Law; court documents themselves are uncopyrightable once obtained.
• Users report that the site includes state, county, and even minor matters (traffic tickets, misdemeanors), not only federal cases.
• Several note substantial gaps: missing chancery courts, missing personal cases, and no hits for at least one very high‑profile criminal case.

PACER, costs, and access

• PACER normally charges per document/view but has a free tier for low‑volume users; law firms are said to be the ones mostly paying.
• RECAP users effectively subsidize free access by uploading documents they’ve already paid for.
• One commenter clarifies PACER gives access to actual PDFs, while some other tools expose only indexes unless you pay.

Previous security / “sealed” records incident

• Multiple people reference an earlier incident with the same site involving a government vendor whose court system lacked real access controls and relied on obscurity of URLs.
• “Sealed” files were not actually sealed; the situation is blamed on poor government contracting and vendor practices rather than the indexer.

Search features & UX

• Users like the full-text capability and speed but want:
  • Query parameters in URLs for sharing.
  • Structured queries (e.g., defendant=X, cause=Y).
  • Better filters (e.g., only full case texts, fewer patents) and sort options by filing date.
• Some note odd ranking behavior (Tennessee results dominating, patents crowding results).

Privacy, “right to be forgotten,” and jurisdiction

• Debate over whether a free public index could handle EU‑style erasure requests; some say this is why it likely focuses on US records.
• Several explain that in much of Europe:
  • Court records aren’t broadly searchable, names are often anonymized, and background checks require the subject’s cooperation.
  • GDPR “right to be forgotten” generally targets search engines, not deletion of court archives.
• Others argue that in the US, such a right conflicts with transparency and the public’s interest in remembering lawsuits; expungement is limited and does not bind third parties.

Misuse, background checks, and personal fallout

• Concern that hiring/background‑check SaaS might integrate this database, making old or minor records far more consequential.
• Some worry that making “authority gossip” so accessible is unhealthy, especially for family searches.
• Multiple anecdotes describe mistaken identity and records being attached to the wrong person over years, plus “spooky” near‑matches on names and biographical details.

Content quirks, patents, and tech

• The index includes patent records and citations, surprising some who discovered their work being referenced.
• People amuse themselves with odd phrase searches (“sandwich murder”) and the unexpected contexts that appear.
• Technical users identify Elasticsearch as the backend, with public API docs showing index mappings.