Virginia Court Case Information Search – vacourts.gov

VA Court Case Info Search:- Virginia is a US state in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Virginia General Assembly created in July 1619, overlooks the state’s legislature. It’s one of the oldest law-governing bodies in the United States.

Virginia’s judiciary consists of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the Circuit Courts, Domestic Courts, Trial Courts, and General District Courts. The chief justice and six judges in the Supreme court serve 12-year terms. Their retirement age is set at 73. The judiciary system is overlooked by the Supreme Court in Virginia.

The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest authority court in the state that hears appeals in civil cases from circuit courts, criminal cases, domestic cases, and cases that were initially heard in the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Chief Justice is the administrative head of Virginia’s Judicial System.

Supreme Court’s case management system

ACMS-SCV, the Appellate Case Management System for the Supreme Court of Virginia is an online portal that contains details of cases being heard in the Supreme Court. This portal can be accessed online without any fee. To search case-related information on the website, you must have at least one of the following information with you:

• First and Last name of the person
• Case Type
• Tribunal case number
• Lower Tribunal
• Case record number

When you log in to the ACMS-SCV portal, you will be prompted to enter either of this information. The case details are displayed on the screen once you enter the relevant information.

After viewing the information click the log out or log off button before closing the search webpage. This portal works with Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 3+ versions. If you keep the webpage unmonitored for a long time, then it will time out.

Maintenance of the portal generally happens at night from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. During this time the servers won’t be able to fetch any case-related information.

Virginia General District Court Information

A separate web portal is available to the public to access case records related to the General District Court. Civil cases and minor criminal case records can be searched in this portal. The information that the system needs to search specific case records is:

• Case number
• Hearing date
• First and Last name of the person
• Service/Process Search

Information related to cases like protective orders, Civil commitment proceedings, temporary detention orders, Medical emergency custody, etc., is not available on this portal.

VA Circuit Court Case Info

The circuit courts in Virginia have a dedicated web portal where citizens can search case information. The cases can be searched using:

• Case number
• Hearing date
• First and Last name of the person

Statewide searches cannot be done on this portal. You will have to select a court to get information on the case you are looking for. Ensure that you log out from the portal once you have the information which you need.

Online Cases Information System 2.0

This is a new online portal where statewide searches can be made for cases of interest. You can subscribe to email updates, text message updates, and SMS message services through this portal as well. you will have to provide a working and valid email address and mobile number to activate these services.

Cases can be searched on this portal using either of the below information:

1. First and Last name of the person
2. Choice of the court (Circuit Court or General District Court)
3. Court Name

This portal doesn’t consist of case information from Alexandria Circuit Court. For the majority of the courts, the information is available for cases filed after 01/01/1990. Certain exceptions related to case records are clearly mentioned on the website.

Virginia State court system

The penalties and criminal offenses are defined by the Code of Virginia. There are around 120 circuit courts, one court of appeals, and other general district courts in Virginia’s Judiciary. Most of the criminal cases are heard in the general district courts.

Other law and order cases like traffic violations, civil cases, automobile accidents, claim cases, etc., are also heard in these courts. Cases where the accused are juveniles, children below 18 years of age, are heard in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Courts.

The hierarchy of the courts in Virginia’s court system are:

1. All preliminary hearings of cases happen in the District courts.
2. The second level in the hierarchy is the Circuit Courts.
3. The Court of Appeals jurisdiction comes above the Circuit Courts.
4. The exclusive authority in the judiciary system lies with the Supreme Court of Virginia.

The circuit courts are also considered the trial court of general jurisdiction in Virginia. These courts have jurisdiction in the below areas:

• Civil cases like adoption, divorce, property disputes, contract disputes, cases with claims between $4,500 and $25,000, etc.
• Criminal cases like felonies, misdemeanor offenses, general law violations, etc.
• Appeals from the juvenile courts or administrative agencies.

If the contesting party isn’t satisfied with the decision given by the circuit courts, then they can file the case in the Court of Appeals. The traffic infractions and misdemeanor cases are heard in the Court of Appeals, and the decision of this court is considered final.

The losing party in the case can also file a petition in the Supreme Court to contest the judge’s decision.

Virginia courts handle large volumes of cases every year, thus managing the workflow isn’t a simple task. The clerk’s offices in courts have been equipped with web-based case management systems. These portals help the court with the end-to-end case and financial management process.

Everything from court documentation to fee payment is automated thereby, reducing manual intervention. Some of these portals are:

Virginia Court Information disclaimer

Freedom comes with responsibilities, thus the case-related information that you view on any of the above portals cannot be freely used or shared. Some critical points to remember while using the case data are:

1. The information on the portal is entered by the clerks of each court. They are the custodians of the information.
2. The Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia has the responsibility of managing and maintaining the web portals. OES is not responsible or liable for any errors in the information on the portals.
3. If you feel that some information is not updated, then you can reach out to the specific court clerk’s office to raise a concern. You cannot update, change or delete the information available on the website.
4. OES doesn’t take any responsibility for any damage or loss of revenue or system failure while using these online portals.
5. Unauthorised activities are continuously being monitored on these systems. Thus, the use of web crawlers, robots, etc., is a punishable offense.
6. You have no right to share the data with other third parties. The data is for your consumption only.

Visit the disclaimer webpage to learn more about the terms and conditions of data usage.

Conclusion

We hope that after reading this article, you have a better understanding about the Virginia Court System and its online court database. You can search for any case as per your needs and use that information with limitations defined by the judiciary system. In case you have any questions or doubts feel free to ask us questions by using the comments section below.

FAQs about VA Court Case Search