Many Americans find themselves wanting to do warrant searches, but they end up stopping before they even start because they worry about it being entirely too difficult to accomplish. What they don’t realize is that this process is actually very easy.
The ways that we’ve found out that someone has a warrant out for their arrest has evolved a lot over the last hundred years, but just because it’s changed doesn’t mean that it’s gotten any more difficult. In fact, many would argue that it’s gotten even easier in a lot of ways.
The internet has opened many, many doors for us. That means that if you know what you’re doing, you can easily get warrant information and a lot more in just a matter of minutes. The internet truly brings us the greatest amount of convenience that humans have ever known.
That’s why today we’re going to be covering how to find warrants as well as what warrants are so you can be sure that you’re actually looking for warrants and not for something else. We’re also going to be covering other types of records so you can be completely sure of what you’re looking for.
What is a Warrant?
It’s not uncommon for people to wonder exactly what a warrant is. You probably know that police need it to legally perform some actions, but why do they need it, when can a warrant be issued, and who can issue a warrant?
These are all important details if you’re trying to make sure that you understand the data in front of you. You could have the meaning of life right in front of you, but if you don’t have the required context for it the information would be useless.
First off, a warrant is an order that is authorized by a judge or a magistrate in order to waive someone’s 4th amendment rights. The 4th amendment is a part of the Constitution of the United States and it grants protections against unreasonable searches and seizures by police or other law enforcement entities.
In order for a judge or magistrate to issue a warrant, certain criteria must be met. For example:
- There must be hard evidence.
- This can include but is not limited to things like:
- Video recordings.
- Audio recordings.
- DNA evidence.
- Photographic evidence.
- Items left at the crime scene, like:
- Wallet.
- Keys.
- Weapons.
- Phones.
- Articles of clothing.
- This can include but is not limited to things like:
- Eye witness testimony.
- If someone stands before a judge and says that they say someone did a crime and that they’re sure it was that person, a warrant can be issued. This usually needs to be in conjunction with a piece of harder evidence.
- A confession.
- This kind of falls in with hard evidence, but if any confession is made from the suspect and they aren’t already in custody, a warrant can be issued.
There are a few cases where the police actually don’t need a warrant. This is largely because if the police needed a warrant every single time they arrested or searched someone, it would make things a lot more complicated if they did. Just imagine for a moment that police catch someone with a brick of cocaine, but they needed to wait for a judge or magistrate to approve a warrant before arresting them.
That would be wildly inefficient and just absolutely insane while also giving the criminal more of a chance to escape before they’re taken into custody. That being said, there has to be real probable cause in order for a police officer to take most actions without a warrant.
Now, do keep in mind that all a warrant will tell you is that someone is suspected of a crime. Nothing beyond that can be ascertained by doing any kind of a warrant search. There are, however, other kinds of records that could end up having what you’re looking for.
Other Types of Records
The government of the United States of America takes a lot of meticulous notes and records virtually everything. There are, of course, a lot of things that are considered “classified” that won’t see the public eye for decades to come, but there are a lot of things that you can access.
If you read over that last section and realized that you’re not actually looking for warrant information, there’s a good chance that you’re actually looking for something else. What could you be looking for though? That’s really the big question for this section.
There are a few types of records that you could actually be looking for. Here are the most commonly searched for records:
- Arrest records.
- These records detail every time someone was arrested by law enforcement. It usually says why they were arrested.
- Driving records.
- Driving records can tell you how many tickets someone has and generally how good of a driver they might be.
- Court records.
- Court records detail every time someone has been to court. You can find both criminal and civil court records.
- Criminal records.
- This type of record shows you how many times someone has been convicted of crimes. This is what you would look at if you wanted to find out if someone was a criminal.
In the vast majority of cases, if you’re looking into someone’s records, you’re either looking for information about outstanding warrants or you’re looking for one of those four. Those 5 in total provide the most information about the person.
Why People Search for Warrants
Maybe you’ve read this whole article and it’s made sense in your head from the beginning why someone would want to do a warrant search. Maybe you’ve read through the entire thing and it’s still not making a lot of sense.
If you don’t understand, don’t worry. We can give you a bit of an explanation so that you can understand why other people do it, even if you ultimately don’t think it would work out as a good idea for yourself.
Everyone has their own different reasons, which is what kind of makes this tricky. Here are a few of the most common reasons we’ve heard from people:
- To make sure that the person they’re going on a date with is safe.
- When they want to find out what kind of person their neighbor is.
- If it seems necessary to vet their child’s teacher.
- Making sure that their loved ones aren’t hanging out with a bad crowd.
- Ensuring that they don’t have any warrants out for their own arrest.
As we said, everyone’s different, which can make this a little tricky. Generally, people do these kinds of searches for safety more than anything else. Plus, if you know you have a warrant out for your arrest you can get things taken care of just in case you go to jail.
Finding Warrant Information
Now, if you’ve decided that this kind of search is for you, you’re going to have to know how to go about getting the information that you’re looking for. There are a few ways that work differently for different people, and it really depends on what you’re trying to get out of it.
If you just want to check in your county or maybe surrounding counties, your best bet might just be using the resources provided by your local sheriff’s department. They usually have a database of outstanding warrants somewhere on their website.
How you would actually use this portal will vary by state and county, but in most cases, you just need to type in the person’s name, and their system will pull up any warrant information. That is, assuming that the county provides this information online at all.
If they don’t, it may be in your best interest to try giving them a call. Not every sheriff’s department will provide this information over the phone, but the ones that do will be happy to. You may have to answer a few questions before they give you the information, but that’s just protocol.
If you want to do a nationwide search, try a warrant search service. These services are able to cast a nationwide net in a matter of moments, making them incredibly efficient if you need to get a lot of information from all different parts of the country.
In fact, this can also be a good tool for those that wanted to get information from the sheriff’s department but simply weren’t able to because these services can oftentimes find information that’s typically hard for normal citizens to access.
A lot of people prefer this method for a lot of reasons, and one of the biggest reasons is simply that it’s faster than trying to search through sheriff’s department records.
Getting Infromation Easily
We live in the age of information, and we have the sum of our collective knowledge at our fingertips. Knowing how to use this to your advantage can ensure that you’re always in the loop, even on the most obscure topics. Whether you’re looking for warrants or strange and rare recipes, the internet has your back.