As part of its mission to support crime victims and seek justice for our community, the Rice County Attorney’s Office created a public-facing portal, providing public information and documents for individual adult criminal cases.
Anyone can access the public portal -- https://bit.ly/RiceCo-CriminalCaseSearch --- from the Rice County Attorney’s Office webpage. The portal provides immediate access to public information about Rice County’s adult criminal cases, including information and documents such as past and future court hearings, the criminal complaint, conditional release orders, domestic abuse no contact orders (DANCOs) and sentencing orders.
The Minnesota Court Records Online (MCRO) system -- https://publicaccess.courts.state.mn.us/CaseSearch -- -- available from the Minnesota Judicial Branch, contains some of the same public information; however, it is difficult to navigate the system and access information without knowing the specific court file number. The public portal from the Rice County Attorney’s Office allows searches by the defendant’s last name, case file number or law enforcement report number. The search return will show open and closed adult criminal cases for an individual, but search results will be limited to Rice County cases.
Public information and documents will be available through the portal once the information has been filed with the district court. That same information can take days to appear in MCRO, which is not helpful if a crime victim wants immediate, up-to-date information.
Rice County Attorney, Brian Mortenson believes this immediate access to public information benefits crime victims by giving them more control in obtaining information, the ability to confirm whether a defendant provides truthful statements about what happened in court and allows them to print and/or save important public documents.
“It will be empowering for victims to have access case information through our online portal. We expect that giving them timely updates and a greater sense of control will reduce further stress during an already difficult time,” he said.
