Pinellas County Public Records

The term Pinellas County Public Records is a reference to a collection of records that are available at all times to the public because of the information that they contain. Certainly there are some types of records that would never be available to the public no matter how much time had passed, but the records contained within these archives are not those types of records, because these records, while important, should not contain sensitive information that would require them to be compartmentalized.

The contents of these records may be sensitive, but they are not that sensitive. The information contained within these records typically includes the names of the parties involved in the proceedings, plus the actual type of proceedings that they refer to. There are a number of types of records, ranging from a simple document purporting to a sale of personal property to full blown records that describe entire court proceedings. Both types of documents and everything between those two types are part of the records because they contain information that is important in both to the appellate process and for the general public. Typically, these types of documents are sources of information for trials as well as for the occasional background checks conducted by employers and other people.

The availability of these documents is governed by a statute, but the statute is founded upon public policy. The statute had given the official custodian of these records, the clerk of courts, the command to keep, maintain, and secure these records. At the same time, however, the clerk is given the instruction by the same statute to make certain that these records are not only up to date, but that they are also available to the public at all times. Between these two seemingly contradictory commands, the clerk of courts had found a middle ground and thus, resulted to a relatively simple procedure that must be followed before a person could access the records.

A person who wishes to see the records that are being kept within the office of the clerk of courts has a number of methods that he could use in order to gain permission. Letters, electronic mail, and even fax are applicable, but by far the most efficient would be personal search. This is so because the records are supposed to be opened to the person asking permission the same day that the request is made. Therefore, it is better to actually be at the office when the permission is given, and personal request would require the searcher to be there anyway. Now, once the records had been opened, the searcher could do the search or could take advantage of the presumption that the clerk knows the records better and ask them to do the search instead.

Once the records had been located, note that they could not be taken out of the archives. These original records have to be secured for posterity, but a copy of them could be made after paying the required copying fee which is usually one dollar per page. Once the copies had been made, the clerk of courts would certify the copies for an additional two dollars per document.

Another option of obtaining records would be to use online databases. There are a number of online databases that provide the same information as the records of the clerk, and most of them are not affiliated with the clerk. These databases are often free to use and easy to understand and locate. In addition to the substantially same information, there are some that provide more information because they are connected to other databases. Most importantly, these databases are instant with their results and thus, more efficient.

Florida Public Records

Comprehensive Public Court Records of Florida Counties