How to read records from the Los Angeles Superior Court

5/20/2018 How to read records from the Los Angeles Superior Court

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Reentry Legal Clinic

How to read records from the LosAngeles Superior Court

Learn to decipher the case printout from LA

Written By: Joshua Kim

INTRODUCTION

The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, maintains detailed criminal case

information from its many courthouses and makes it available in different formats.

The LAeCourtOnline websiteprovides only bare minimum of information, including only the

name of the case, case number, charges, and disposition, along with disposition dates. It

contains even less information than a DOJ rap sheet, as it's missing sentencing information.

Detailed information is available via an in-person request at the court for a printout from the

court's Trial Court Information System (TCIS), commonly-referred to as a "case docket."

The printout has all the information disclosed on the LAeCourtOnline website plus sentencing

and post-sentencing information--pretty much all the information necessary to fill out a

dismissal petition.

The printout can be difficult to read. Hopefully this how-to helps.

How to read records from the Los Angeles Superior Court

2014 reentrylegalcl inic.dozuki.com Page 1 o
https://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/onlineservices/laecourtonline.htm


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Step 1 How to read records from the Los Angeles Superior Court

In California, the law contemplates 3 major types of court records: index (Gov't C.

69842); register of actions ( 69845); and case docket. In order to properly fill out a

petition for dismissal, an index record is insufficient. You should instead get a copy of

register of actions or case docket on the particular case to be dismissed.

There are several ways of obtaining a register of actions or case docket from a superior

court in Los Angeles County. The most effective way is to walk in to a criminal clerk's

office and ask for a printout of case docket under your name and date of birth.

If you cannot pay 50 cents per page, ask for a fee waiver. You qualify for a fee-

waiver if you're receiving Medi-Cal, Food Stamps (CalFresh), SSI, SSP, General

Relief, IHSS, CalWORKs, and/or CAPI. (Note that unemployment insurance or Section

8 doesn't count.)




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Step 2




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Case docket printouts from the Lo

Angeles Superior Court are inch

wide and mile deep. They only

have information on one case eac

but they (are supposed to) have

comprehensive information about

what the court did in that case

from the filing of an initial

accusatory pleading to the

conclusion of that case.

To compare what a DOJ

rap sheet would show in

comparison, check out Step 2 i

the guide on "How to Read a

DOJ rap sheet."

The image shows the very first

page of a case docketfrom the

Los Angeles Superior Court.

Red box:The top of the page

shows which court the action

took place. On this case, it wa

at the Municipal Court of Centra

Arraignment Courthouse. You

will notice that the name of the

court is somewhat abbreviated.

Blue box:Here is probably the

most important piece of

information about this case, thecase number.It has been

redacted to protect the subject'

privacy, but you can see it read

9CR***.


http://reentrylegalclinic.dozuki.com/Guide/How+to+read+a+DOJ+rap+sheet/1


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Green box:And the name of

the defendant. Note that this

may not be the defendant's true

name. It's just the name that the

case was prosecuted under.

Note also that this person is

DEFENDANT 01. The full case

number includes the defendant

number, so this case's full

number would be 9CR***-01.

Orange box:The arresting

agency, which is usually the

LAPD (Los Angeles Police

Department), or LASD (Los

Angeles Sheriff's Department).

Yellow boxThis is the

description of the initial

charging document, e.g.

misdemeanor complaint, felony

information, or indictment. This

person was charged with 4

counts. It remains to be seen

how many of them she was

convicted of.




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Step 3




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A case docket printout from the Los Angeles Superior Court starts off with information

about the initial charge. The rest is a series of summary description of each proceeding

held in the case, separated by a few blank lines.

Each entry subsequent to the initial charge will start off with the date, time, and location

of the courtroomwhere the proceeding took place; the purposeof the proceeding; and

the partiesin attendance.

On July 8, 1999at 8:30am, in Division 81of Central Arraignment Courthouse, the

case was called for arraignment.

An arraignment is the first time a defendant appears before the court, and the defendant

pleads guilty, not guilty, no contest, etc.

For the purpose of this arraignment proceeding, the judgewas Commissioner Kirkland

Nyby; the clerk, Martha Rico; the reporter, electronic recording (i.e. tape recorded);

and the prosecutor/City Attorney ("CA"), Bryan K. Bowers.

CAstands for City Attorney. CPstands for City Prosecutor. DAstands for District

Attorney. And DDAstands for Deputy District Attorney.

On both images, the blue boxshows that each entry--including the initial charge

information--always ends with the next scheduled event.Unless something unexpected

happens, this should always line up with the first line of the next entry.

A common "unexpected event" occurs when the court issues a bench warrant

because the defendant doesn't show up for a scheduled hearing. Pay attention to

these bench warrants. For a defendant on probation, they can result in a probation

violation. Note that probation revocation doesn't automatically result in probation

violation.




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Step 4

To fill out a petition for

dismissal, we need to

extract the following information

from the case docket: case

number, defendant's name, date

of conviction, the court of

conviction, prosecuting agency,

offense(s) convicted, sentence

given, and probation result(if

probation was granted).

Another way to think about these

pieces of information is to

categorize them in 3 groups: (1)

IDENTIFICATIONinformation, (2)

CONVICTIONinformation, and (3)

SENTENCINGinformation.

IDENTIFICATIONinformation

includes: case numberanddefendant's name. We already

covered these.

CONVICTIONinformation

includes: the date of

conviction, the court of

conviction, prosecuting

agency, and offensesconvicted. We will cover these

next.

Finally, we will cover

SENTENCINGinformation,

which includes: sentence given

and probation result.




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Step 5

For our purpose, convictionoccurs when the defendant is found guilty andsentenced. In

short, the date of conviction is the date of sentencing.

On a Los Angeles case docket printout, the sentencing starts with the words "AS TO

COUNT (XX)". In Los Angeles, this usually happens on the same day that the court finds

the defendant guilty and enters disposition of "CONVICTED," but conviction and

sentencing often occur on different dates elsewhere.

The date of conviction, i.e. sentencing, and the court of convictionis found at the

beginning of this entry, as you can see. The case was initially called for arraignment on

07/09/1999in CENTRAL ARRAIGN CTHOUSE.

Make sure which attorney prosecuted the case. It's not important who Mr. Bryan K.

Bowers is. What's important is that he's a CA, City Attorney. You can turn to the very

first page and see which agency effected the arrest in this case. The City Attorney is

from the same city.

It's a bit more complicated to extract the accurate information as to which offense(s) the

person was convicted of. DISPOSITIONof each COUNTis easy to see. COUNT (01)is

the only one to result in DISPOSITION: CONVICTED, while COUNT (02)-(04) are

dismissed.

To verify that what offense was alleged in COUNT (01), go back to the first page ( thesecond image). You see that COUNT 01was 242-243(E) PC MISD. That is, Penal

Code (PC) section 242-243(e), charged as a misdemeanor.

Watch out for additional counts being added on ("by interlineation") after the

initial charge has been filed.




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Step 6

Let's look at sentencing informatio

in more detail.

Immediately following "AS TO

COUNT (XX)" is the sentence

itself. There are three (3) options

here, two of which end up in

probation.

(1) The court does not give out

or imposeany sentence. So

"IMPOSITION OF SENTENCE

(is) SUSPENDED," and

probation is granted. That's wha

happened in this case.

(2) The court imposesa

sentence but suspends its

execution--and probation is

granted. You will see "SERVE

XXX YEARS IN ANY STATEPRISON" and "EXECUTION OF

SENTENCE (is) SUSPENDED,

if that's the case.

(3) Or the court can simply

sentence the defendant to a ter

of incarceration, a fine, or both.

In other words, sentence is

imposed and executed. Ergo, n

probation. You may even see

"COURT ORDERS PROBATIO

DENIED" thrown in for good

measure.




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Step 7

To figure out whether the defendant successfully completed all terms and conditions of

probation (or the sentence itself), it's obviously necessary to know what those terms and

conditions were to begin with.

In this case, the court granted SUMMARY PROBATIONfor A PERIOD OF 024 MONTHS.

And the probation included THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

Three (3) days in county jail. Since this defendant had already spent 3 days or more in

county jail waiting for this arraignment hearing, this is time served, i.e.no actual jail

time is given.

Payment of $77.75 in attorney fees(to the public defender's office).

Restitution fine of $100.

Note that the court set a hearing date for proof of paymentof this restitution fine

on 11/5/1999.

And other standard terms and conditions, including OBEY ALL LAWS AND FURTHER

ORDERS OF THE COURT.

There is no record of the defendant's compliance with the above terms and conditions of

probation--except that she did not file her proof of restitution payment by the date set by

the court. So it went to a collection agency. And, yes, this is a probation violation.

More on that next.




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Step 8




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So what isa probation violation?

It's the probationer's failure to

comply with some term or conditio

of probation. And the vast majority

of them can be identified in one of

three (3) ways.

The first way to identify a probatio

violation was covered in the

previous step: failure to pay the

required fine before the due dat

(If no due date is given, it must be

paid before the end of the probatio

period.)

Another common probation

violation occurs when the

probationer commits another

criminal offenseduring the period

of probation. Recall that OBEY

ALL LAWSis a standard probatio

condition.

Finally, look for this line in the

court record: THE COURT FINDS

DEFENDANT IN VIOLATION OF

PROBATION.

To be absolutely clear,

revocation of probation

alone does not make a

probation violation--until thecourt states on the record it is!




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This document was last generated on 2014-09-17 11:14:28 PM.

As you see in the sample

image, probation can be

revoked, modified, and

reinstated without the court eve

finding that the probationer was

in violation of probation. This

isn'ta violation.



How to read records from the Los Angeles Superior Court

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