South Carolina Court Docket Search

A South Carolina court docket search is a process used to access public records related to court cases heard within state limits pursuant to the South Carolina Public Records Act. The search can provide detailed information on past and current court proceedings, including dates, times, participants, case outcomes, costs, and other pertinent details.

Similar to South Carolina court records, dockets are official logbooks summarizing the time entries and events of a court case in a Trial or Appellate courthouse. The courthouse clerk assigns a unique number on a docket sheet whenever a complainant files a case. From the moment of filing until the date of judgment, the docket sheet serves as an abstract for court cases.

Are Court Dockets Public Record in South Carolina?

Per the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act, Court dockets are public records, and they are open to the general public. Interested persons can access the court docket online or in person at the court where the case was filed.

Where to Find a Court Docket in South Carolina

A researcher should be aware of the year a case was filed before an attempt to locate a court docket in South Carolina.

Court dockets for all cases filed before 1981 are managed at the Federal Record Center, South Carolina. While court dockets for civil and criminal cases filed between 1981-1992 are found in the South Carolina information archive system. Interested persons must provide the party name and the court docket number.

Every other case, including criminal and civil cases filed from November 1990 until date, is located online by an information management system.

How to Conduct a South Carolina Court Docket Search

The search for a court docket in South Carolina can be done at the clerk's office in the court where the case was filed. All claims in the clerk's office are filed and recovered using a docket number. In-person written applications and online services are the various ways one obtains court dockets from the clerk's office in South Carolina courthouses.

For an in-person visit to the clerk's office, the intake area of the clerk's office is where a researcher examines a court docket. The researcher is to pay a fee to the courthouse clerk's office where the case was filed to obtain certified copies of court dockets.

In South Carolina, the clerk's office also allows researchers to access court dockets by utilizing the party index to identify the docket number for a particular case. The party index is available to the public Monday- Friday from 9:00 a.m.- 5;00 p.m. at the staffed office in Florence, Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston. And researcher is to pay a fee of thirty-two dollars ( $32) in advance for each name (party index) search made.

For online search, the South Carolina Judicial branch provides a system for case management search options on the website. Interested persons can retrieve the court docket by following these steps:

Click on the Trial Court menu
Select the case search button option
Then select the county where the court case has been filed

A page is displayed showing a disclaimer. To proceed, the inquirer would need to click on the accept option.

To search for a docket, the researcher will be required to provide certain information as follows:

The filing and judgment dates
The complete name of the complainant/offender
The case type and case sub-type
The indictment and warrant number
The case number
CDR code; The four-digit shortcut indicating actual criminal cases as stated by the code of the law of south carolina indicating.

In February 2005, the District of South Carolina also launched a case filing and retrieval system via The Electronic Management Filing/case management system (EMF/CMS), which allows registered individuals to access case dockets electronically over the internet. Internet platforms are provided at the divisional clerk's office at Columbia, Florence, Charleston, and Greenville, where computer terminals are made available in the lobby for members of the public to access court dockets.

Interested persons can also obtain court dockets for criminal and civil cases filed after 1990 on the EMF information management system. And one will be required to pay a fee of $0.10 to print each page of certified copies of the court docket.

Using Third-Party Sites for a South Carolina Court Docket Search

Certain private aggregate websites also disseminate court dockets, e.g., for cases of public interest. When using third-party sites for a South Carolina court docket search, care should be taken to verify case information or documents obtained against the official dockets maintained by the applicable court clerk's office (where the case was filed). This way, a researcher can guarantee the accuracy and completeness of case information retrieved from third-party sites.

What is the Purpose of a Court Docket in South Carolina

South Carolina court docket provides information on the status of a case for the clerk of the courthouse, as well as for the case party.

For the clerk of the courthouse - to be aware of what cases are active and decide to enable the proper numbering, preparation, and printing of the courthouse's official timetable for the week.
And case status for the case party - to move for a faster trial or a motion for continuation of the case beyond the terms or the postponement to a date later within the terms.

Court dockets are also important sources of information for researchers, attorneys, complainants/defendants because it provides links to documents used during a court case, the location of the courthouse, time of the court hearing, date of filing, and judgment of a case, etc.

What Do Court Dockets Contain in South Carolina?

The Appellate and Trial Courts in South Carolina have slight variations to the information(s) contained in their court dockets.

The details found in Appellate Court dockets include the following:

The name and address of the complainant and the defendant.
The date of filing and proceedings of the court case.
The outcome in a specific case
The name of the prosecutor and defense attorney of the case
The name of the presiding judge.
The warrant and indictment number.
The type of charge made.
The date of the arrest.

While the Trial Court dockets contain information as follows:

Date of the filing and proceeding.
The charges.
The name of the plaintiff and defendant.
Name of the prosecutor and defense attorney.
Name of the agency in charge of the case.
The date and time of trial
The name of the trial judge

What is a Court Docket Number in South Carolina?

A docket number is a mix of memorable characters, alphabets, and numbers given to a case by the guardian of records of a courthouse where a Case was filed and heard. Care is taken when allocating a docket number so that every case is included and no two Cases have the same docket number. The docket number is on the original and all copies of a case file and document before returning to the participating party or filing Attorney.

Each case is assigned a unique South Carolina docket number in the following format:

One digit indicator represents the division a case is heard. For example, three (3) indicate Columbia, zero (0) indicate Rockhill, and four (4) indicate Florence.
A colon and a two-digit figure, represent the year of filing an issue. For example, 3:00 indicates Columbia, in the year 2000, and 4: 91 shows Florence in 1991.
The acronym CV, DM, MC, and CR represent civil, domestic, miscellaneous, and criminal. For instance, 402CR will indicate Florence, 2002, criminal case.
A four-digit number represents the case number for the year. For example, 3:02MC0004 indicates Columbia, 2002, the miscellaneous and fourth case of the year, defendant 0ne(1).
For civil issues; a hyphen and initials signify the district judge's assignment. e.g 3:02CR0004-JFA (Columbia, 2002, criminal case, a fourth case of the ear, Judge Jack F. Adan, Jr. DCN indicates Judge Duke C, Noge.
The suffix following the district judge indicates the assignment of all or part of a case to the Magistrate judge. For example, 3:02DM0005- CWA-PJG tells Columbia,2002, domestic, fifth case of the year, Judge C. Wiston Hunck, Magistrate judge Pegge J. Gist H.

How to Conduct a Court Docket Number Lookup in South Carolina

Citizens can look up court docket online or in person clerk's office of the courthouse where the case was filed.

The district of South Carolina has an Electronic case filing system that is allowed to citizens and attorneys registered in the district. The divisional clerk's office at Grenville, Columbia, Florence, and Charleston provides public access to computer terminals. And registered users can do court docket lookup by docket number, party name, and filing date range. The charge for printing is 0.10 per page. Researchers must request court dockets in person because payments are made in advance.

The South Carolina judicial branch has an online case management system that enables citizens to conduct a court docket lookup online. On visiting their webpage, Interested persons should:

click on the Trial Court menu
Select the case search button option
Then select the county where the court case was filed

A page would be displayed showing a disclaimer. To proceed, the inquirer would need to click on the accept option.

To search for a court docket the researcher will be required to provide certain information which is as follows:

The filing and judgment dates
The complete name of the complainant/offender
The case type and case sub-type
The indictment and warrant number
The case number
CDR code; The four-digit shortcut indicating actual criminal cases as stated by the code of the law of south carolina.

The South Carolina supreme court has also developed a statewide Family Court Case Management System portal, allowing interested persons to look up court dockets online. After clicking on the "agree" button, such a person is to provide:

The name of the people or organization
The case type
The case filing start date and the case filing end date
The name/location of the county where the case has been filed
Then click on the search button to obtain the court docket.

Note that the information obtained from court dockets may not be accurate and timely. Therefore interested persons are advised to visit the courthouse clerk's office where the case was filed, to obtain certified copies of the court docket report.

Researchers can also look up court dockets before 1981, and criminal and civil cases filed after 1992 but before 2005 at the National Archive and Record Administration (NARA) of the South Carolina, Federal Record Center.