Moultrie County Illinois Arrest Warrant Criminal Records

The Difference Between Arrest Warrant and Warrants

Warrant Records in Moultrie County Illinois have become quite controversial over the past few years. In 2021, the state legislature passed an act called the Right to Search and Arrest Records Act. This legislation allows for anyone who may need to access another person’s records to be able to do so without first going through the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police or the Cook County State’s Attorneys office. Some worry that this is a power grab by the government, but there are actually certain aspects of the new law which show how these warrants might benefit some people and how they can protect themselves and their families from unnecessary and unwanted attention.

First, there was a clause added to the Right to Search and Arrest Records Act stating that a peace officer may issue a warrant for a person’s arrest when “such peace officer has reasonable cause to believe that such a person is committing or attempting to commit a violation of any law concerning public records.” The amendment was meant to prevent police from arbitrarily arresting someone without a warrant after making an error in judgment. People may question exactly what constitutes a “law concerning public records” because in practice, a warrant for a person’s arrest is pretty much anything that the government could reasonably get a warrant for. This includes anything that a court “may order” in a criminal proceeding. For example, if the State Supreme Court orders a person to produce birth certificate records, they can get a warrant to do so as long as they can convince the courts that there is “probable cause” to believe that the person is not complying with the order.

However, the meaning of “reasonable cause” is very vague in our present society. It has always been difficult for courts and prosecutors to determine whether or not there is reasonable cause to believe that a person has violated any law. Because of this, warrant records are often kept in different places for varying periods of time depending on the situation. For example, records kept by the county sheriff are typically only good for six months. However, records kept at the county courthouse or state archives are good for two years.

This is the problem with having these records available. They are only available to law enforcement officials and certain officials who have been given permission by a judge to access the person’s records. For example, sex offenders are required to update their parole information and to apply for a protective order each time they are allowed to leave prison. Because of this, someone who commits a sex offense and then fails to appear at the court that originally ordered the monitoring will usually be caught by this law and will be sent back to jail. However, someone who obtains an order for protection from a judge without knowing his or her full name is still not required to update it on a year-to-year basis.

As mentioned above, these types of records are kept at various locations for various periods of time depending on the circumstances surrounding the request for the record. If someone wants to perform a background search on a person that they just met, it may be possible to access the person’s court records through a simple warrant. However, if the person is looking into something more serious such as a sexual offender, there may be a need to go through more drastic measures. These types of records can also be referred to as Classmate, Sex Offender Records, and Fugitives From Justice records. There are even warrants for people who failed to show up at court for any reason.

Warrant records are helpful in the event of any number of scenarios, but they should not be used blindly for investigative purposes. This information can prove useful, but the information contained within the records is not the only thing that a person can learn about a person. Many warrant records are sealed or destroyed years before the person was supposed to face trial, so having a lawyer perform a criminal search on your behalf could turn up valuable information. This is especially true if you’re looking into hiring someone for a legal job and suspecting them of some sort of crime.