Need a background check in California? Changes at the courts are causing long waits

A courtroom at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. A panel at the 4th District Court of Appeals determined that Riverside County’s Superior Court website, which allowed users to input dates of birth and driver’s license numbers while searching for criminal records, was in violation of a state court rule that says such information should be excluded from court “indexes” accessible to the public through “electronic means.” “After considering the text, history, and purpose” of the rule, the judges found that state courts should limit search criteria for the public, effectively eliminating the use of birth dates and license numbers. “With this change, the L.A. County court has made it significantly more challenging to accurately identify individuals during background checks,” the firm said. “The criminal background check as it currently exists today might not be a viable model in the near future.” Joshua Kim, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Hamrick case, said he wasn’t aware of holdups with housing and job applications — but said any such issues would be the fault of the background check industry, not the courts complying with the law. “The fundamental question that we’ve been asking in the reentry law community is whether background checks are effective in screening out dangerous employees,” Kim said.