Search records at the courthouse
Public court records are available at each courthouse. Each court has a computer reserved for public searches of court case information and court records in that court.
Sealed cases and sealed records are not public, and some cases are exempt from disclosure under the Kansas Open Records Act (K.S.A. 45-221). Other records may be exempt by judicial rule, order, or case law.
Records that are NOT available include:
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adoption records;
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certain criminal investigation records;
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expunged criminal records;
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many child in need of care and juvenile records; and
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grand jury proceedings.
Search using eCourt public access portal
As Kansas courts move to a new centralized case management system following the Kansas eCourt Statewide Rollout Plan, their public records will become available through an online portal.
Cases and records that will not be accessible through the portal are identified in the Supreme Court's Kansas eCourt Rules (20-25).
If a record is public but not available through the public access portal, it will be available at the courthouse. Each court has a computer reserved for public searches of court cases and court records in that court.
Sealed cases and sealed records are not public, and they can't be accessed through the courthouse terminal. Other records may not be available by state statute, judicial rule, order, or case law.
Case information versus court records
Case information includes details about a case. This would be the case number, the type of case, who’s involved, names of attorneys, judge assigned, and hearing dates.
Court records include the documents filed in the case.
You will be able to search case information through the public access portal, but only records (documents) after a court begins operating on the Kansas eCourt case management system will be available.
As described earlier, information in some cases is not public because it’s sealed or is exempt from disclosure by state statute, judicial rule, order, or case law.
Information in some cases is not available through the Kansas District Court Public Access Portal but is available through a computer terminal at the courthouse.
Courts on public access portal
You can search district court cases statewide using the Kansas District Court Public Access Portal.
The Kansas eCourt Courts lists the dates each court began operating on the Kansas eCourt case management
system. This is the date court records—not case information—would begin to be available. This assumes access is not restricted by state statute, judicial rule, order, or case law.
Public records are always available at the courthouse.
Requesting district court records
The Kansas Open Records Act allows you to inspect and obtain copies of public records maintained by Kansas courts, as long as those records are not exempt from disclosure.
Requests for court records must be made in writing. You may use the Request Form for Court Records to make your request.
About requesting court records
District court contacts
Criminal history search
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation offers a Kansas Criminal History Record Check for searching a person’s criminal history.
According to the KBI, any individual, company, or organization is entitled to obtain a criminal history record from the KBI for a $30 fee. The KBI reports that a substantial portion of its criminal history record database is fully automated and available for immediate release on its website, which allows a criminal history record to display immediately for review and printing as needed. For records that are not automated, the KBI says a criminal history report is normally released wthin one or two days.