North Dakota Court Records

North Dakota Court Record Lookup

Taking a case to court in North Dakota is a significant investment of time and effort. Getting the court’s official decision enacted may be too, whether it’s establishing North Dakota child support and custody, collecting after a judgement, conducting an eviction, or clearing one’s driving record. North Dakota ND court records are public documents and may be obtained by anyone in ND. Court records contain North Dakota criminal records, civil cases, warrants, traffic violations and more information. And all this data can be found by performing North Dakota court records search.

Limited jurisdiction courts

In North Dakota, municipal courts handle violations of municipal ordinances without jury trials.

Tribal courts have jurisdiction over cases arising on sovereign Native American land in the state.

Trial courts

District courts are located in 53 places around the state and have general jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters as well as exclusive jurisdiction of juveniles. Divisions within the North Dakota courthouses offer special treatment to drug users, veterans, and the mentally ill, making treatment options an integral part of the legal process.

Some records may be restricted for confidentiality reasons, including juvenile cases and those that name victims of certain crimes.

There were over 29,000 criminal cases before district courts in a recent year, a slight (3 percent) increase from the year before, but misdemeanor cases comprise nearly 70 percent of all cases, and felonies comprise 26 percent. Theses cases may be obtained via North Dakota court case lookup.

Appellate courts

The interim court of appeals is assigned cases by the state supreme court. Justices that sit on appeals court panels are current and retired supreme and district court judges and attorneys.

The state supreme court is the highest court in the state, overseeing the state bar and hearing appeals of lower court cases. Its judges are elected.

U.S. District Court

There is at least one federal court in each state that has jurisdiction over multi-state lawsuits, federal law violations, and bankruptcy cases. Anyone can view North Dakota court records online via conducting North Dakota court record lookup.

North Dakota Notable Cases

North Dakota's voter identification laws have been called into question and called discriminatory in a case brought by a group of Native Americans. The case states that the changes to voter ID requirements in 2013 are unconstitutional and "'disproportionately burden and disenfranchise" members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa tribe.

These changes in North Dakota voter ID laws require a state ID card, ID issued by a tribal government, long-term care certificate or current driver's license and must list the person's address and birth date. The plaintiff argues that these changes caused some of them to be turned away from polls because their tribal IDs did not list a current address. A similar case heard by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit decided a Texas voter ID law was discriminatory and violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

A neurosurgeon from Minot, North Dakota was charged with seven counts of child pornography, including production and receipt of materials depicting the sexual exploitation of minors. Mark Eichler has pleaded not guilty, and was released on his own recognizance. The case has been moved to federal court, so state charges were formally dropped against him. His medical license expired in 2008.