Using the Resources of the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court for Carrying out a Backgroung Check

There are several ways to find out if a person involved in your life has a criminal history.  Typically, the easiest and most cost effective way to run a background check is to refer to your local county clerk. In this article we’ll be using the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court as an examples. We’ll cover the two primary types of information accessible to the general public – civil and criminal records. Let’s start with the latter.

Conducting a Criminal Background Check

Running a background check consists of two distinct searches—arrest records and criminal records (specifically from court). Finding Palm Beach County arrest records is the first step. You can locate them by accessing the booking blotter on the local Sheriff’s website (https://www3.pbso.org/blotter/). This database presents people who were taken into custody in the last 12 months. Alternatively, you can call the Inmate Records Unit at 561-688-4340 and inquire about a specific detainee.

If you want to find out whether a person has ever been convicted of a crime (misdemeanor or felony), you should turn to Palm Beach Clerk of Court. To save you time, you can then check with the clerk’s online database (found at: https://appsgp.mypalmbeachclerk.com/eCaseView/) for any criminal cases in their history. This search tool lets you trace dockets by case number, subject's name, company name, court type, case type, citation number and offense date.

You can also turn to the adminstrative records of the Clerk's office and file a FOIA request to view the dockets they process and store. You can contact them on the phone at 561-355-2983, send them an amail at publicrecords@mypalmbeachclerk.com or visit them in person at 301 N. Olive Avenue, 9^th floor, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33401. 

Accessing Civil Court Records

The last step in looking up someone’s history is to check for civil cases in their past. To trace Palm Beach County Court records dealing with such cases, you can go to https://erec.mypalmbeachclerk.com/. You will find there a database which encompasses a great variety of docket types like real estate and taxes, and even lawsuits and small claims cases. There are numerous parameters according to which you can conduct your inquiry, for instance name, docket type, case number, record date, instrument number, parcel ID, legal terms (e.g. Deeds) or book and page number.