[codechad]

There are public court records (criminal, civil), and there are non-public court records (e.g. sealed - juvenile, divorce, etc.)

As far as I can tell, all of this data is of the public nature.

While it may feel weird to type in someone's name and see their history with regard to legal filings... that is the society we live in: an open society.

Aggregating a number of disconnected data sources for search I think is absolutely a legitimate usage of the data.

[drewmol]

I have some records that are sealed, but show up in this database. So there are records that were once ‘public’ but are no more, but this database makes them public again.

[lazide]

FYI, I found a couple folks I know’s divorce records. So I wouldn’t assume those hard and fast rules apply consistently.

[codechad]

Fair enough - in my state they are limited to parties involved and their counsel.

The public can still see the filing and result (when the divorce was granted), but the actual documents are restricted so as not to air all of one's dirty laundry unnecessarily.