Orange County Public Records

Records are often the best way to prove that something had happened. Often, they are the only types of documents that could be used to prove that something had indeed happened. This is the case when it comes to the appellate process where records are often the only sources that magistrates refer to. Hence, the reason why Orange County Public Records are so important, because the records that are going to be used in these proceedings are all located within this collection of records that are always available to the public.

To be sure, records contain more than just the name of the parties and the type of document or record. These records also contain the names of witnesses, their testimonies, their locations, and the evidences that they presented. All this is in addition to the actual minutes of the trial as prepared by the court stenographer, the decision of either the judge or the jury, the collection of papers over which the motions and the arguments of attorneys are reduced. Once the case had been completed at the first level, the records would also contain the decision and how the case was disposed of, plus, the reasons for the same as required by the law.

The importance of these records is illustrated by the fact that the law requires them to be public at all times. This command of the law is anchored on the fact that public policy and checks and balances are best served by making these documents available to the general public. Note that the clerk of courts, the official custodian of these records, is not allowed to refuse anyone access to these records.

As the official custodian of these records, the clerk of courts has the original copy of the documents stored within their archives, and by command of law, they are required to open the archives whenever they are requested to do the same. For this reason, a person who wishes to view the archives should first go to the office of the clerk of court and make the request there. No matter what the reason is, the clerk of court would have to open the archive. Once the same is open, the searcher could do the search or leave the search to the clerk. Either way, assistance of the clerk would often be indispensible because of the volume of records that have to be searched.

Once the records had been located, the searcher could make a request for a copy which is one dollar per page for regular sized pages. Oversized pages are at five dollars per page. The copy would be certified if they would be used for official purposes, and only the clerk of court could actually do this, but there is a required payment of two dollars per document.

Now, for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to travel all the way to the office of the clerk of courts, there is another option. The clerk operates an online database, but the same is still incomplete, again because of the sheer volume of records. Instead, it may be advisable to just depend on other online databases. These databases are easy to find and understand to use. They also usually are free of charge, near instant with their results, and, because they are connected with other databases, often provides other types of information that may be of use to the searcher. More importantly, they are internet searches and as such, they do not require falling in line or even leaving the comforts of ones home.

Florida Public Records

Comprehensive Public Court Records of Florida Counties