Indiana Judicial Branch Court Data

Indiana Office of Court Services (IOCS) has access to confidential and non-confidential Indiana’s court records through a case management system called Odyssey. Some non-confidential data is readily available online but, for practical reasons and to obtain the data in usable form, a researcher may want to request a subset of these records in what the IOCS calls bulk distribution. To request bulk data accessed by the IOCS, a researcher must complete an application and a Data Use Agreement, and pay the fees for data. In the application, they should:

• Describe the information they are looking for.

• List the courts that exercise jurisdiction over this information.

• Explain how the research would benefit the Indiana Judicial System and the public so that fulfilling the request is an appropriate use of public resources.

• Prove that the information requested does not violate the purposes of Admin. R. 9 or the Access to Court Records Rules. The objectives of these rules are to assure public access to Court Records while protecting privacy interests.

• Confirm that IOCS has enough available resources to prepare the information and it is technically feasible to complete the request.

• Make a case of how the information sought is consistent with the purposes of Access to Court Record Rule 5 which specifies records excluded from public access.

Access to confidential court records, court documents and financial information are rarely granted, but are available if the applicant has a substantial bona fide research interest that will benefit the Indiana Judicial System or agencies of government  as opposed to a private interest. Records excluded from public access include court records declared confidential; individual case records declared confidential; personal information of litigants, witnesses, and children; and administrative records such as attorney residence addresses. Researchers requesting confidential records have to complete an application that fulfills all the criteria listed above. They also have to: 

• Specify whether there is a need to notify the personsaffected by the release of information and who needs to be notified.

• Explain how the data will be secured from disclosure.

• Specify how denial of access could damage the public interest.

• Prove that identifying specific individuals is auxiliary to complete the research question. 

When an otherwise non-confidential request contains confidential information such as Social Security numbers, IOCS may fulfill the request partially by providing all the information requested, with the exception of the Social Security number field which will only contain the last four digits. In a case like this, IOCS would send the request to the Court Technology Division to prepare the data and then transmit it to the applicant.

The applicationsmay be mailed, emailed, or faxed toIOCS for review, evaluation, andprocessing. For approval, requesters must commit not to sell or distribute the information to third parties, not to use the information to sell a product, not to copy the information for purposes other than the specified, and to pay reasonable costs associated with fulfilling the data request. Fees for bulk data are charged once an application is approved. 

For requests of confidential data, the Chief Administrative Officer and/or the Indiana Supreme Court should approve the application. Then, the requester will execute a Data Use Agreement adopted by the Office of Judicial Administration (OJA).

If data is requested from courts using the Odyssey CMS, a fully integrated case and financial management system designed for storing and organizing the records of local courts through the State, the data will be provided directly to the applicant through a secure website data drop. If the data requested is not from courts using the Odyssey CMS, IOCS provides authorization for the applicant to work with individual courts or clerks to get the information within the scope of the request. In this case, the local trial court or clerk determines whether the information requested is consistent with the purposes of Admin. R. 9, whether resources are available to prepare the information, and whether providing the information is an appropriate use of public resources.