How to find this police/court/legal info?

January 10, 2023 10:10 AM

Someone was murdered, and later a suspect was arrested. Both of these were in 2020 in Los Angeles. I know the name of the victim and the name of the suspect. How can I find out what happened after that?

The crime itself was covered by the news in a a very minimal way (because: Latino on Latino crime, in a "bad" neighborhood, racism, etc.). But Google is showing me no hits beyond "Person X was arrested for the murder of Person Y." Googling the suspect's name doesn't bring me anything of value (or it's buried; the name is too common). Googling the suspect + the victim just brings me back to "this guy was arrested."

Where/how can I search to see what happened next?

FWIW, the victim was a schoolmate of my child, who would like to know if the suspect was convicted.

posted by BlahLaLa to Law & Government (6 answers total)

I suspect there wasn't a conviction or even a plea because that should generate at least minimal coverage for Google to find (especially if it was a child (?) victim). However, you can check the LA County docket search for the defendant's name. It appears there's a charge to do so.

I'm sorry for your child's loss.
posted by praemunire at 10:27 AM on January 10, 2023

In my county (TN), the local court system has a portal that provides for searching recent civil and criminal cases. All you get are the 'events' related to a case (continuance granted, filings, etc), but it's usually enough. Other places I've checked (Atlanta, for example) have similar capabilities but charge a fee for access, as praemunire says.
posted by jquinby at 10:33 AM on January 10, 2023

Also a search on the LA Times archives might yield more info. than google searches.
LA area libraries offer this database to card holders.
posted by calgirl at 11:30 AM on January 10, 2023

You search criminal cases here. Requires registration and a small fee to run searches. The docket will show convictions. You may need to pay another small fee to get the sentencing. Be prepared to wade through a lot of results if the perp doesn’t have an unusual first or last name.
posted by MattD at 4:41 PM on January 10, 2023

It's also possible, given the way the pandemic twisted the world and court systems, that the accused is still in jail, pending a trial. You may not find anything because there's nothing really going on at this moment.
posted by annieb at 5:05 PM on January 10, 2023

I could not find the info, and decided not to pay to delve any further.
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:23 PM on February 9, 2023