What online court websites list arraignment dockets by defendant name?
Executive summary
Publicly accessible online court systems and commercial aggregators commonly let users search dockets by party or defendant name, but availability varies by jurisdiction and by case type — federal filings are centralized through PACER while most states run their own searchable portals [1] [2] [3]. Several state systems explicitly advertise name-based searches for criminal calendars or case dockets (examples include Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon and local county sites), and commercial services offer consolidated (usually paid) alternatives [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9].
1. Federal backbone: PACER for federal criminal dockets (and thus arraignments where filed)
For federal cases, the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is the central online system where anyone with an account can locate appellate, district and bankruptcy dockets and filings; criminal dockets that contain arraignment entries are available through PACER searches and docket reports [1] [2]. PACER charges modest per-document or per-report fees and requires an account, so while it lists federal docket events by case and party, it is not a free, open-name index in the way many state portals advertise [2] [1].
2. State-level portals: many list dockets or calendars searchable by defendant/party name
A patchwork of state and court websites provide name-based lookups: Washington’s “Find My Court Date” lets users search by litigant name across multiple court levels (municipal through appellate) and points to county-specific portals for the most current data [4]. Massachusetts’ Trial Court case access portal and guidance pages show that trial dockets and calendars can be searched by party and event, including criminal settings where arraignment dates appear [10] [5]. Colorado offers a statewide docket search with filters and name-based lookups for dockets [7]. New Jersey’s public “Find a Case” database supports searching criminal cases and judgments by defendant name [6]. Oregon provides free access to calendars and basic case information and highlights paid subscription access for more extensive records [8]. At the county level, criminal docket applications such as Travis County, Texas, publish current and future criminal settings searchable for defendants [11].
3. City and county systems, plus state-specific unified court systems, are often the fastest route to arraignment calendars
Large jurisdictions often maintain their own searchable tools — Los Angeles Superior Court’s dockets are searchable by party name for a fee as a representative example of county-level systems [3]. New York’s unified WebCivil and related tools let users search civil and certain criminal calendars by party or defendant name for cases with future court dates in many counties [12]. California’s appellate and Supreme Court docket search lets users find dockets by party names for appellate matters, while trial-court calendaring is typically handled by county systems [13] [3].
4. Commercial aggregators and consolidated services: convenience at a price
Commercial services like Justia Dockets aggregate federal district and appellate dockets and provide party-name searches across jurisdictions, and LexisNexis CourtLink advertises broad coverage and tracking tools for litigants and their attorneys — both can reduce the need to visit many separate court sites but typically operate on fee or subscription models [14] [9]. These services can surface arraignment events recorded in public dockets, but they reflect the same underlying public records and may lag or omit jurisdictions not included in their coverage [14] [9].
5. Practical limits, privacy and the uneven landscape
Access practices differ: some courts restrict online publication of certain criminal records by law or policy, others require paid access or limit document visibility to recent events, and many portals update on different schedules, so searching by defendant name will succeed in many but not all places and may require clicking through state, county, or commercial services to find an arraignment entry [8] [3] [4]. Reporting sources used here document the available portals and their advertised search features but do not provide a single national index of arraignment dockets; therefore any comprehensive search strategy must combine PACER for federal matters with the relevant state or county portal, and consider paid aggregators for broad, cross-jurisdiction coverage [1] [2] [9].