South Dakota is currently piloting a new case management system called eCourts. Once released to the public, this system will allow access to court case information and certain document images from any computer, after an account is established. Users will be able to view and download pages for $.10 per page. For this reason, the system is noted as being similar to PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the system provided by the Federal Judiciary to access federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy records.
The benefits of this new system beyond accessibility is users can search by name, date of birth, county, and the offense date range. The public access computers currently available in the courthouses only allow searching by case number. Requestors wanting to obtain a complete criminal history must submit a request to the clerk and pay $20.00 per name.
At this time, it is unclear what types of case details and documents will be provided to the public once eCourts is officially released in late 2019/early 2020.
To learn more about eCourts visit https://ecourts.sd.gov/Account/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f and view the Help tab at the bottom of the page. An informative article about this pilot program can be found at https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/south-dakotans-will-soon-be-able-to-access-court-records/article_7be2d9fc-ccc9-503b-ad86-5a4094a452c2.html
