Minnesota Court Records

Minnesota records from the court can be found from an online resource that has been provided by the state’s district courts, popularly known as MPA Remote, or Minnesota Trial Court Public Access Remote. A lot of the state’s court records can be viewed through MPA Remote.

Restrictions on Information Available

Keep in mind that any court records in the state which is available from MPA Remote can only be presented in the version of public-view. What this means is that there is the possibility that some personal information and data can be left out from the particular case and the records maintained in the state.

The information that you can get from the MPA may include actions, judgments, calendars and case information. If you are searching online, you may not be able to access the case files that are criminal in nature, and those of traffic and petty misdemeanors. You can obtain these from the public terminal of the courthouse. Electronic document copies filed in the district court also may not be accessible from the Internet.

When you want to find and access your court records in the state, you must have some idea of the legal structure of the state. There are various types of courts in the state with different jurisdictions, and the records maintained  will differ between them, too.

Which court you need to approach depends on the type of case. This is why you should have some background information about the case and the legal structure.

District Courts

District Courts in the state have jurisdiction in general over all criminal and civil cases inside the state, and these courts are organized into various divisions based on the type of the case. This may include Criminal, Family, Civil, Juvenile, Housing, Misdemeanor, Probate, Traffic and Conciliation cases. There are a few jurisdictions that share some case types. In a district court there can also be a division for “Problem Solving,” or a Specialty Court like the court for Mental Health, Truancy Court, Drug Court, Community Court, Peer Court or Teen Court.

Divisions for conciliations handle civil cases where the dispute amount is not more than $7,500. If the case involves transactions of consumer credit, then the claim may be up to $4,000. These divisions never handle some case types such as disputes on issues of boundary and title of properties, slander or libel defamations, cases where there is a request for specific performance, requests for a prejudgment remedy, class actions, injunctive relief requests, and those for medical malpractice and eviction.

Finding and Accessing Court Records in Minnesota

Recent years have witnessed tremendous developments in computers, technology and the Internet. The result of this is that court records can now be accessed on the Web. Since these court records are in the public domain, you can legally ask for them. You will just need to inform the court about your intent and your relation to the person about whom you want the information. Of course, you also need to be a citizen of the U.S. to access any court record.

There was a time when the records were maintained as a hard copy only. Thankfully, those days are now a thing of the past. Since the court records have been digitized and are kept in a central database, it has become much easier to find and access them.

You can access the state record website to find court records of Minnesota. If you do not prefer to do that for some reason, then there are several private websites you can approach as well.

There are ways you can access the records offline, too. You can approach the clerk at the courthouse and ask for the record, or call the courthouse to place your request over the telephone. You can search for the record by the Social Security number of the person if you know it. Alternatively, you can also search the public records at the public library. With some luck, you can access the record there too.