Midland County District Clerk's office

Ross Bush won the Republican Primary spot for Midland County District Clerk, and there appears to be no Democrat running, so unless something happens, Mr. Bush will be the next Midland, Texas, District Clerk.

The time for submitting a wish list has probably expired, but what the heck.

Anyone who has gone into the Midland County Courthouse in the past few years has experienced the belt and jewelry strip, the pocket emptying, and the here-comes-another-terrorist look the courthouse guards give to citizens wanting to use the Courthouse. In other words, it's not a very user friendly place.

Now that we are in the information age it's a shame that the District Clerk doesn't utilize the internet more. Pull up the District Clerk's home page and get a few links, but the civil and criminal links are dead ends. But the county does give us a very nice Purpose page:

In providing the Midland County web site as a public service, our mission is:

-To improve public access to County information, programs, and services.
-To provide a mechanism for County government to become more efficient, effective, and responsive to the public through the use of online web portals.
-To expedite County government's internal functions.

We sincerely hope that you find this site useful, informative, and enjoyable.

For contrast, take a look at the Harris County District Clerk's page. Plug in a plaintiff's or defendant's name and most likely, that person's case will pop up. To give it a spin, just put a common name in the blank. Now that's useful, informative and enjoyable.

Mr. Bush has his work cut out for him.

Updated 5/11/10, 3:30pm -- Ask and you shall learn. Civil and criminal cases are already online and available to citizens through the District Clerk's office. But there's a catch.  It costs a $120 annual fee plus a $0.10 per page fee to view or print a document. So the information is there, but it'll cost ya. Anyone wanting to see a case file has a decision to make: suffer humiliation at the hands of the courthouse guards or pay up for online access.

Next question:  Is the county making money on this or is that what it actually costs to provide the information online?

Comments

[Ospurt]

Pretty much all of the County's records are already in a digial format (Criminal Case Files, Property Records, Probate, Civil Complaints, Commissioner Court Minutes).

I would suspect that making these records available on the internet runs up against one, or multiple of the following roadblocks:

1) Cost of server space/maintenance
2) Privacy Laws (Many records might have to be redacted to remove certain information)
3) Licensing Issues (The software companies, and/or the scanning and indexing companies may have retained certain restrictions for performing the services, usually at a reduced fee).

[Geo]

Harris County seems to have overcome whatever roadblocks were in place. But Midland County is no Harris County, and someone will have to take some initiative. Hopefully, Ross Bush is up to the challenge, Ospurt.

[Ospurt]

True, the resources in Harris County are much greater.

I'm sure Harris County has a much larger internal technology staff to do some of the heavy lifting that is being done by IT contractors in smaller counties, which helps with potential licensing issues.

I didn't register, but I found it interesting that the way Harris County addressed the privacy/ID theft issue was to require the creation of a free user account.

[Geo]

Looks like the Midland County District Clerk already has it online, but it's behind a pay wall. See latest update.

[Ospurt]

Well there you go, the fees probably cover licensing, cost recovery and some profit for the County.

FYI, Harris County isn't totally free. There are some parts of their system that charge a per page fee (thus a secondary reason for the free user account).