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Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

judyrecords.com

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Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#221

Post by bradknowles »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #144
bradknowles wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are exact match searches supported? There is absolutely no evidence on the page that this is possible. How does searching for “brad knowles” match “brad alan knowles”, when I put my name in quotes? How does it match a case where “brad knowles” does not appear to be used anywhere on the page, but where one line matches “knowles” and then another line matches “brad”?

I think this is a smart-quotes issue -- smart-quotes are removed: “brad knowles” -> brad knowles "brad knowles" -> "brad knowles" I always set my OS to disable smart-quotes. Worst is when you paste them into source code.

Fuck me.

How did I not spot that?!?

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#222

Post by nickphx »

boomer918 wrote: post #196

This is a pretty big violation of privacy, especially for people who's criminal records have been expunged. It could satisfy some people's curiosity or if they are a lawyer, they could save a few grand on PACER, but for everyone else this is a privacy disaster. I hope you take this down eventually.

You don't need to be a lawyer to get a PACER account. I'm a felon, I have a pacer account.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#224

Post by iudqnolq »

HWR_14 wrote: post #199
arcticbull wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really a bad thing? Nobody should be representing themselves because they have no idea beyond Law and Order what all is supposed to be happening around them. That's why you get a complementary attorney if you can't afford one. It's just too important to risk no? Like DIY surgery. It's quite expensive and impenetrable to be doing your own appendectomy and I'm not mad about that. In both cases you could if you…

> That's why you get a complementary attorney if you can't afford one. Not in US you don't. Leaving aside how you don't have a right to a lawyer when you are on either side of a civil matter, most states will send you a bill should you avail yourself of the "a lawyer will be provided for you" part of the Miranda rights. Now, if you are broke, they'll still provide services to you. In Canada you actually get free lega…

To clarify, that's not a bill you only have to pay if you get a windfall. That's a bill that (in some places) will be agressively collected as a part of your fines.

If you're in prison you also have nearly no rights to a lawyer. (For example, if you want to sue the prison system for inhumane conditions)

Edit: For ex you may need to pay fees to be allowed to drive, which you may need to go to work/buy food.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#225

Post by bradknowles »

richardbarosky wrote: post #153
Tempest1981 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a smart-quotes issue -- smart-quotes are removed: “brad knowles” -> brad knowles "brad knowles" -> "brad knowles" I always set my OS to disable smart-quotes. Worst is when you paste them into source code.

Maybe that can be handled better automatically. Good point, thanks for mentioning.

So, a couple of weird things here.

First, when I go to the website, whether it's the mobile version or the desktop version, the on-screen iPadOS keyboard is immediately hidden from me. I have no way to type anything into the website, unless I flip out the physical keyboard that just happens to be attached to this case. I have never seen that kind of behaviour before on any other website, ever.

Second, Apple does not make it easy to figure out where the "turn off smart quotes" option is located. I think I turned it off under the switch for Settings > General > Keyboard > Smart Punctuation but I'm not 100% certain. Nevertheless, this is the first case where I recall using quotes where they were not honored as I would have expected. I'm not sure where the blame lies on this -- is it a user expectation problem, an iPadOS problem, or a website problem?

I'll try again, this time trying to make sure I use the proper type of quotes.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#226

Post by TigeriusKirk »

reaperducer wrote: post #124
cryptnotic wrote: post #87

Today I learned that 20 years ago I was a defendant in an unlawful detainer (eviction) lawsuit regarding an apartment I shared in college. I had moved out of the apartment after graduation. Apparently my roommate stopped paying the rent and the landlord sued both of us. I was never served and didn't know about the case until now.

Today I learned that my boss has a lead foot. 15 speeding tickets in six states, all over 85 MPH.

I learned there's an attorney with my exact name and middle initial and his kajillion filings obscure my traffic tickets.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#227

Post by wolverine876 »

iudqnolq wrote: post #224
HWR_14 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why you get a complementary attorney if you can't afford one. Not in US you don't. Leaving aside how you don't have a right to a lawyer when you are on either side of a civil matter, most states will send you a bill should you avail yourself of the "a lawyer will be provided for you" part of the Miranda rights. Now, if you are broke, they'll still provide services to you. In Canada you actually get free lega…

To clarify, that's not a bill you only have to pay if you get a windfall. That's a bill that (in some places) will be agressively collected as a part of your fines. If you're in prison you also have nearly no rights to a lawyer. (For example, if you want to sue the prison system for inhumane conditions) Edit: For ex you may need to pay fees to be allowed to drive, which you may need to go to work/buy food.

> that's not a bill you only have to pay if you get a windfall

You can't get a windfall as a criminal defendant, just a conviction or not.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#228

Post by bradknowles »

richardbarosky wrote: post #115
bradknowles wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are exact match searches supported? There is absolutely no evidence on the page that this is possible. How does searching for “brad knowles” match “brad alan knowles”, when I put my name in quotes? How does it match a case where “brad knowles” does not appear to be used anywhere on the page, but where one line matches “knowles” and then another line matches “brad”?

"brad knowles" - 14 results returned. The exact phrase is found in each. brad knowles - 1925 results returned, which include results with brad and knowles in the text, where close proximity cases are ranked higher. Results with brad and knowles further apart will be ranked toward the bottom. When you use quotes above, I'm not sure if that means what's in quotes above is what you searched or that you searched with quo…

Here's a case that shouldn't match an exact search, because the two words are separated by a line break: https://www.judyrecords.com/record/nqt11i9y33dec

I've found other cases where most of the hits shown on the screen are for one word or the other, but not both together. There is at least one hit on each of those cases where the two words are properly found side by side and in the correct order, and so it is technically a hit for the search. But the display is not correct, because on displaying the article it is showing each word hit individually from the others.

Using proper ASCII quotes to force an exact match instead of somehow getting smart quotes is definitely an improvement, but there's still more work to be done here with regards to line breaks and display of hits.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#229

Post by Flashtoo »

boomer918 wrote: post #192
drewmol wrote: post #83

I recently had some criminal charges expunged, and I notice they show up here. Is there any way to request removal of court records which are no longer publicly available from the originating court?

Isn't there laws protecting people against this? Expunged record should not be visible, right?

There are in Europe i.e. the GDPR but not in the US afaik.
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