Public Access to Court Records
The Maryland Judiciary Case Search is a web site which allows you to freely access information on all civil, traffic, and criminal cases in the state. This information includes defendant name, city and state, case number, date of birth, plaintiff name (civil cases only), trial date, charge, and case disposition. A search can turn up information on civil and criminal cases in all 24 of Maryland’s Counties in both the State’s district court and circuit court systems.
Maryland Appellate Court opinions are also online.
The Maryland Electronic Courts system
The Maryland Electronic Courts (MDEC) project will create a single Judiciary-wide integrated case management system called Odyssey that will be used by all the courts in the state court system. Courts will collect, store, and process records electronically, and will be able to instantly access complete records as cases travel from District Court to Circuit Court and on to the appellate courts.
MDEC, is set to launch 10/14/2014 in District Court, Circuit Court, the Court of Special Appeals and the Court of Appeals for Anne Arundel.
Other News
Update (8/5/2008): apparently the MD judiciary case search has become big internet news. The Washington Examiner has a story about how people who received traffic violations in Maryland may need to worry about identity theft because social security numbers are published in the case search records. “The traffic citation records show a person’s full name, address, sex, height, weight, birth date and driver’s license number, which is sometimes the same as his or her Social Security number — information that is hunted by identity thieves.”
Update (8/19/2008): LexusNexus, as part of Zimmerman’s Research Guide, has a page of resources and information about the Maryland Judiciary System.
Update (9/2/2010): TomComKnowsHow.com has a tutorial on How to Perform Maryland Judiciary Case Searches Online. The article suggests that, “as part of a pre-employment background check, you can perform an online Maryland Judiciary Case Search which will help you to weed out most of the dishonest applicants, before initializing further steps.”