A recent press release from the Department of Justice illustrates the potential dangers in using pretexts and subterfuge to locate bank accounts and other non-public consumer information. Below is the text of the press release. The press release itself can be found here. Long-Time Private Investigator Sentenced for Practice of Making Pretextual Phone Calls PHOENIX, Ariz. […]
Pretexting and Asset Searches – Dangerous Pitfalls Read More »
A recent article published on the Serve-Now website gives Washington process servers some advice which, if followed, could result in both criminal charges and a civil suit. The article discusses the use of body cameras by process servers. The author, private detective Ken Ringo of Bryan, TX, describes an incident in which his body cam
Wearing a Body Cam while Serving Process in Washington Read More »
District and Municipal Court Case Number Format:
Case numbers assigned by courts of limited jurisdiction (district and municipal courts) are determined by each court. Such case numbers may consist of all numbers, numbers and letters, or even include other characters such as a dash (-). Although certain courts may attach specific meaning to the case numbers used by their court (such as court branch, type of case, year filed, etc.), these case numbers have no particular meaning to others outside of the court. If you want to know the meaning of a certain district or municipal court’s case number format, contact the court.
Superior Courts – SCOMIS System
The first two digits of the case number are used to indicate the year the case was filed. The third digit is used to designate the case type. The next series of digits is the actual sequential number of the case beginning from 00001 in the current year. The last digit of the case number is called a check digit and is used by the computer to verify the correctness of the previous digits.
Example: Case number 93 1 00042 7 shows that the case was the 42nd criminal case filed in 1993. The check-digit is seven.
Example: Case number 14 3 00108 6 shows that the case was the 108th domestic case filed in 2014.
Unfortunately this system resulted in duplicate numbers from one county to another across the state. This wasn’t a problem so long as you knew in which county to search.
Superior Courts – Odyssey System
For superior courts who have implemented the Odyssey case management system, the new format is similar to the old format; the only difference is the county number is now at the end where the check digit used to be located.
For example:Â Lewis County is S21 in JIS/SCOMIS. All of their cases will now end in 21 instead of the check digit that traditionally came at the end of the case numbers. The case number 15-1-80304-7 in JIS/SCOMIS would look like 15-1-80304-21 in Odyssey.
This system eliminates the possibility of duplicate case numbers anywhere in the state.
This is a rough diagram of a typical courtroom in the state of Washington. Courtrooms vary a great deal from city to city and county to county but they all have the same basic structure.
There is a great deal of similarity between the Washington State court system and the Federal court system. The primary difference being the source of the case. Those cases involving state law are initiated in the state court system. Those cases involving federal law are initiated in the Federal court system.
The Washington judicial system is relatively straightforward and follows the basic outline of the federal court system. An extra layer is added at the bottom, made up of the municipal and district courts. Both of those are trial courts aka court of original jurisdiction. The superior courts are also trial courts but can act as a court of appeals for the municipal and district courts.
Washington’s Court of Appeals is in three divisions as represented on the map to the left.
This flowchart illustrates the court system in Washington. The connecting lines indicate the possible direction of an appeal. It is possible, though rare, for a case beginning in a municipal or district court to become an important decision by the state supreme court.
This flowchart illustrates the court system in the United States. The connecting lines indicate the possible direction of an appeal.
The tools used in collecting evidence are as varied as there are objects in the world. There is no one method or tool for all types of evidence. The tool used depends on the makeup of the evidence. Liquids are collected in one manner, powders in another, and electronic data in yet another.
Here are few examples of kits available for purchase.
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Evidence tags come in a variety of forms and styles. There are any number of sources for them. Many sources sell complete kits which contain containers and tags for almost any type of evidence.
Here are a few examples.
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