Virginia Circuit Court Search

Archived

The state has released a new version of their website with statewide search. This project is no longer necessary.

Virginia Courts Case Information - Statewide Searches ARE Possible

http://VACircuitCourtSearch.com

Developed at the 2014 Virginia Coalition for Open Government Annual Conference in Roanoke, VA for journalists who need to run statewide searches on the Virginia Circuit Court site, but don't have the time to search each district individually.

Running Locally

• Make sure you have Python and Pip installed. On OS X, you can use brew to install Python and you get Pip as well.

  brew install python

• Install the requirements

  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Set MongoDB instance

  $ export MONGO_URI=mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds027761.mongolab.com:27761/va-circuit-court-search

  -OR- for Windows

  $ set MONGO_URI=mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds027761.mongolab.com:27761/va-circuit-court-search

• Run the server

  python courts.py

• Browse to http://0.0.0.0:5000/

Courts that denote felony or misdemeanor in case number

• CharlotteCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year (i.e. F00001)
• ChesterfieldCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year (i.e. F00001)
• GoochlandCircuitCourt - case number has F/M before case number (i.e. 0000F1)
• LeeCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year and one 0 (i.e. 0F0001)
• PageCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year (i.e. F00001)
• RichmondCityCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year (i.e. F00001)
• WiseCircuitCourt - case number has F/M after year (i.e. F00001)

Court with case numbers that don't reset each year

• AmherstCircuitCourt - (2014: 14890 - 15204)
• BedfordCircuitCourt - (2014: 11169 - 11554)
• BristolCircuitCourt - (2014: 1018 - 1483)
• ClarkeCircuitCourt - (2014: 7390 - 7675)
• FranklinCircuitCourt - (2014: 19481 - 19850, 56075 - 56757)
• LoudounCircuitCourt - (2014: 26174 - 27371) (CR00)
• MadisonCircuitCourt - (2014: 5577 - 5705)
• RadfordCircuitCourt - (2014: 12707 - 13605)
• RussellCircuitCourt - (2014: 2681 - 2768, 15845 - 15999, 16959 - 17891)
• WilliamsburgJamesCityCountyCircuitCourt - (2014: 23238 - 24221)
• YorkCountyPoquosonCircuitCourt - (2014: 8011 - 8446)

Courts without normal case numbers

• AmherstCircuitCourt - cases commenced by reinstatement use original case number with letter (A, B, ...) after CRYY
• BristolCircuitCourt - probation violations have same case number with a V after CRYY
• CliftonForgeCircuitCourt - independent city until 2001, now part of Alleghany County
• VirginiaBeachCircuitCourt - cases from 2014 on different website
• YorkCountyPoquosonCircuitCourt - cases commenced by reinstatement have different numbering