Richmond County court records to go online Oct. 14

ROCKINGHAM — Public records at the Richmond County Clerk of Superior Court’s office are currently unavailable — but should be online next week.

Richmond County and others in the region are in the midst of transitioning to the eCourts system, which is scheduled to launch Monday, Oct. 14, according to the N.C. Judicial Branch website.

“Digital records are easing burdens on limited facilities space, reducing courthouse foot traffic at security checkpoints and customer counters, and transforming public access to vital court records for the future of North Carolina,” reads a press release issued by the court system on Aug. 5.

Other counties launching the same day are Anson, Cabarrus, Cumberland, Hoke, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Scotland, Stanly and Union.

Using the eCourts portal, users will be able to look up: court records and case information; search for court dates/hearings; search the judgment index; and make payments.

Residents will also be able file paperwork in certain types of cases. Visit nccourts.gov/ecourts for more information.

According to the courts website, 38 of the state’s 100 counties have already gone live with Enterprise Justice (Odyssey).

“Millions more North Carolinians will benefit from the convenience of digital access to their courthouse in 2025 as momentum builds for statewide completion of the historic eCourts transition in the Judicial Branch,” NCAOC Director Ryan Boyce said in the press release.

However, the digital switch isn’t without its issues.

Citing multiple lawsuits, WRAL-TV reported in March that the eCourts system has “led to hundreds of people being unlawfully detained, caused others to spend unnecessary time in jail and seen some be arrested multiple times on the same warrant.”

In the same story, WRAL reported that the staff of the clerk’s office in Harnett County racked up more than 2,500 hours in overtime in the first five months of using the system, leading to “stress and mental fatigue.”

A year ago, N.C. DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin, a Richmond County native, called for a delay in the launch in Mecklenburg County, the second region to go live following a pilot program in Wake, Lee, Harnett and Johnston counties.

Earlier in 2023, Lee County attorney Chas Post told WUNC that the goal of reduced time and paper turned out to be the opposite.

“There’s many more steps than there used to be,” Post told WUNC. “There’s just as much paper if not more paper in the courtroom than there used (to) be, and the workload for not only the District Attorney’s office but the clerk’s office has doubled.”

In April 2024, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys called for a halt of the system, with the D.A.s in Johnston and Mecklenburg counties citing concerns of increased workload and privacy, according to NC Newsline.

During that hearing in front of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety, NC Newsline reports that Boyce said that many of the problems were being addressed by the court system and developer Tyler Technologies.

“These old legacy mainframe systems we’re dealing with are on 1959 technology,” Boyce said, according to NC Newsline. “Every day we have those systems is more of a risk than our cloud-based systems.”