Sacramento County Court Records Lookup

The following is for information purposes only

Sacramento County was one of the original counties in California and was founded on February 18, 1850 and named after the Sacramento River. The river was named by a Spanish cavalry officer, Gabriel Moraga making a reference to the Santisimo Sacramento; the “Most Holy Sacrament or the Catholic Eucharist”. Its county seat is Sacramento, which also is the state capital of California. The population of Sacramento County is over 1.58 million people. The court system of Sacramento County is centralized so that the Superior Court is the only court which consists of several Divisions where all legal debates, discussions, and arguments take place. This in turn leads to a final decision called a judgment made by a judge in any of the Superior Court branches.

The Superior Court of Sacramento has one of its branches in the Carol Miller Justice Center. This Superior Court hears landlord-tenant cases, traffic infractions, and small claims. As part of its duties, it holds arraignments, pretrials, and trials for traffic infraction cases. Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse tries criminal cases such as felony, misdemeanor, traffic infraction, and DUIs. It also holds general and limited civil trials. The Sacramento County Superior Court Juvenile Courthouse is empowered to decide juvenile non-traffic infractions and juvenile delinquencies (juvenile justice cases). Lorenzo Patino Hall of Justice Superior Courthouse hears criminal, felony pre-trial motions, and domestic violence cases. The William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse Superior Court (WRRFRC) is versatile in handling family law matters, juvenile dependency cases, and probate cases.

The statewide report of California for the fiscal year 2021-2022, recorded 203,094 number of cases for total filings received in Sacramento County and stated that 78,473 were disposed of that same year. This is calculated according to the number of cases filed and disposed in civil, criminal, juvenile dependency, juvenile delinquency, civil and criminal appeals, appeals and habeas corpus, probate, mental health, family law, felony, traffic cases, non-traffic infractions, small claims, and jury trials. In the same vein, in the year 2020-2021, Sacramento County filed 185,492 and disposed of 44,645 cases. This suggests that Sacramento County receives at least 200,000 cases in a year. The Superior Court Clerk is in the position to maintain court records. The public can request to view court records at the individual courthouses where a case type was filed providing a valid identification document (i.e current driver's license). In addition, Sacramento County provides an online service where it publicly allows internet users to view publicly available court records. Adoption, juvenile, paternity cases (except judgement), and termination of parental rights are some of the records that are not to be viewed by the public.

Sacramento County is home to a diverse population. It serves its people through its well-rounded Superior Court (one court system). This court provides the opportunity to discover the diverse range of services and resources provided by its various branches. Some of these services include accessing remote courtrooms, providing a means to search cases online, requesting for copies of court records to be delivered via mail, and obtaining certified copies of records. The Superior Court employs the hands of seasoned court staff as it is deliberate about conveying total justice.