Public Access to Court Records

Middlesex Court Information Requests can be found here.

The Judiciary as defined in Section 84 is exempt from applications pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law. Requests made to the Court for information should not be made under FOIL.

Although the Courts are exempt from the Freedom of Information Law there are many other disclosure requirements for the books and records of the Courts in accordance with other laws.

SECTION 2019-8 Uniform Justice Court Act Justices,

Criminal Records and Dockets

The records in dockets of the Court except as otherwise provided by law shall be at reasonable times open for inspection to the public ...

SECTION 255 Judiciary Law

A clerk of a court must, upon request, and upon payment of, or offer to pay, the fees allowed by law, or, if no fees are expressly allowed by law, fees at the rate allowed to a county clerk for a similar service, diligently search the files, papers, records, and dockets in office; and either make one or more transcripts or certificates of change therefrom, and certify to the correctness thereof, and to the search, or certify that a document or paper, of which the custody legally belongs him, can not be found.

The fee for copies of documents will be $0.25 per page.

According to the above sections of the Uniform Justice Court Act and the Judiciary Law, the Court:

• Must permit the records and dockets to be at reasonable times open for inspection to the public

• The Clerk (where there is no Clerk, the Judge) must search files, papers, records and dockets in the Court office and make certain copies (for a reasonable fee)

• Must permit the docket book of the Court to be kept open during business hours for search and examination by any person.

ALTHOUGH THIS IS A BROAD SWEEPING, GENERAL RULE, THERE ARE SEVERAL EXCEPTIONS THAT REQUIRE THE COURT RECORDS TO BE SEALED OR KEPT CONFIDENTIAL. SUCH RECORDS, OR SUCH PORTIONS OF RECORDS THAT ARE REQUIRED TO BE SEALED OR KEPT CONFIDENTIAL WILL NOT BE VIEWED BY THE PUBLIC.

The availability of Court documents will be subject to the Court's schedule and arrangements will be made for examination of dockets and documents at times when the viewing will not cause any disruption in Court proceedings.

E-mail requests for information will not result in information being e-mailed back to the requesting party. Please print and fill out the Court Document Information Request form on the Court homepage and follow the instructions for mailing or personal delivery.