Archive for the ‘Tennessee’ Category

Juror names and jury questionnaires are public records and subject to disclosure even if a trial judge has made promises to the contrary. At least in North Dakota. A ruling by that state’s Supreme Court, cited by the Associated Press, rebuffed a trial court’s claim that the records in one case were sealed out of fear that the jurors could be harassed.

“We conclude those reasons, by themselves, are insufficient to rebut the presumption of openness and to warrant a blanket closure in this case…”

Court rulings may seem like a bouncing ball when it comes to privacy, public records and electronic messaging. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has asserted that companies do not have an automatic right to access employees’ text messages if the data is stored on outside servers. Read more about this decision and the significance for privacy and data management. Some other news stories on email access and public records can be found at WikiFOIA.

Maybe it’s a trend in the refinement of the sex offender databases and regulation of where registered sex offenders can live.Tennessee has joined Indiana (see this court ruling on the Indiana law), Missouri, Kentucky and Alaska requiring registered sex offenders submit their email addresses, which are being added to those state online databases. States can’t keep track of the physical location of registrants so the email address disclosure may not be of much value to public safety.

I guess the sex offender registries have been a sufficiently popular idea that states are continuing to create boutique criminal records databases. Baltimore, Maryland recently approved legislation that would create a public Gun Offenders Registry, requiring those convicted of gun related offenses register their name, address, and photograph with the police department. As yet, a Web database is not available.

California could become the first state to have a Domestic Violence Offenders Registry.

Minnesota, Tennessee and Illinois have Methamphetamine Offenders Registries. Montana includes convicted meth manufacturers in its Sexual and Violent Offender Registry. Oklahoma lists the offenses that require registration in its Sex and Violent Crime Offender Registry. Georgia, Kansas Kentucky and Connecticut briefly considered adding a violent offender registry to their roster of convicted criminal databases. Similar legislation is still alive in Hawaii.

The Illinois State Police maintains the Child Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registry.

The flush of interest in drug dealer registration faded in Maine, New Mexico and Illinois last year, but is still alive in New York. New Mexico has a DWI Offender Database.

Find out if a Michigan drivers license is valid or has been suspended or revoked by searching the Repeat Offender Inquiry.

And, on the meth makers theme, the DEA National Clandestine Laboratory Register, “contains addresses of some locations where law enforcement agencies reported they found chemicals or other items that indicated the presence of either clandestine drug laboratories or dumpsites.”

I was setting out to write about state lookup and registration of “Do Not Call” and “No Call” phone numbers. More on this in a moment. I’m diverging to mention a few voter registration lookup links. The Federal Voting Assistance Program, U.S. Department of Defense collects links to State Voter Registration Verification Web sites. The participating states provide this service for residents to confirm their voter registration status. The sites may variously require a name, date of birth, street number or address to verify whether the individual is registered to vote.

A few non governmental sites that collect links to public records have a category dedicated to voter records. Black Book Online has 63 links to city, county or state government voter registration lookup. Search Systems has some additional links, but there are variations in both collections. And neither has Southington, Connecticut Voter Registration Lookup included. Imagine that! Read my prior posts on voter registration verification.

Okay, on to Do-Not-Call phone lookup sites. The Tennessee Do-Not-Call Citizen Registration Lookup returns a street number match to the provided telephone number. The Missouri Registration Lookup for No Call List verifies whether a phone number is on the list and the date it was registered.

Do you know of other voter confirmation or Do-Not-Call registration sites?

Some states, counties and towns list current registered voters on a Web site. But you might also look for databases and PDF files that voter registrars and town clerks compile of formerly registered voters. States and local agencies variously refer to these non current registered voters lists as purged, inactive or excluded. Use advanced search operators at a search engine to search by different phrases, file types and site domains to identify inactive voters lists. Here are a few I found.

Darien, Connecticut roll of inactive voters.

Voter Purge List, Madison County, Alabama residents.

City of St. Louis Inactive Voters List.

Knox County, Tennessee Purged Inactive Voters is available as of 2005.

Inactive Voter Status – Barnstable, Massachusetts

And, just to remind us that easy come, easy go…In 2000, People for the American Way published a Central Voter File Exclusions List of registered voters Florida planned to purge from the rolls as purported felons. The list was never used and People for the American Way has since removed it from their server.

It had to happen. Newspapers that publish public records databases have been attracting more viewers to their sites. I don’t know if this translates into subscribers or other ways papers make money, but the Memphis Daily News is taking the direct approach, selling access to Tennessee public records. The paper has partnered with the Chandler Reports, which sells property profiles and business filings. There are no free searches, although they do the usual gimmick of presenting search fields but then require a fee to see any results.

One interesting feature that I haven’t seen other newspapers pick up monitors new public records filings then sends them to you in an email. This costs, too. The Watch Service charges $1 a month per tracked entity – a business, person or address – obtaining daily filings of property, bankruptcy and court records. Then an alert is emailed to you when a record is located. It’s unclear how detailed this is. Also, the service only covers Shelby and DeSoto counties.

Oh, the paper did just add a free crime report database. Search by address to find crime incidents. If you want to receive email alerts you’ll have to subscribe!

Similar and more extensive records may be available for free from the government agencies that generate them. Perhaps some of my readers can enlighten us.

The Missouri Attorney General has unveiled a database of filed consumer complaints that can be searched by company name or partial name.The database includes more than 100,000 complaints filed since January 1, 2004. View the complaint number, type of complaint, the number of complaints and the date filed. The site does not provide any information on whether the complaint was pursued by the Attorney General or what the result of any investigation might have been.

The Tennessee Sexual Offender Registry has been expanded to include mapping and photographs of all offenders, and more offenders than were previously on the Web site. Registry of sex offenders expanding, Chattanooga Times Free Press, July 27, 2007.

In advance of any state law, the Rockland County, New York Clerk has installed software that will remove Social Security numbers from the online version of recorded documents. According to this article, New York state tax liens now use a different number than the Social Security number on documents.

A bill signed by the governor of North Carolina will marginally facilitate the reconnection of birth parents and the children they relinquished for adoption. If both parties agree, the adoption placement services will act as confidential intermediaries, providing the birth parents and adult children with each other’s contact information.