Normalized fields reference

Normalized criminal record fields beside the source’s words

Courts, jails and prisons describe the same facts in different words: “GUILTY”, “CONVICTED”, “Judgment and sentence”. Every record therefore carries a normalized object with one closed set of classes for category, severity, outcome, custody, person codes, places and dates. They are what search filters test.

• normalized is on every record, in search, batch and the record lookup. It is null when a record could not be classified.
• rulesVersion names the version of the rules that produced the values, and quality is quarantined when a source’s normalized values are withheld (its own fields are unaffected).
• include: ["normalizedDetail"] on a search adds rule to every charge: which rule decided its outcome.
• normalized.cases[] and each case’s charges[] follow the order of the record’s own cases[] and charges[].

{
  "recordType": "court_case",
  "sex": "Male", "race": "White",
  "cases": [ { "caseNumber": "201944871", "status": "Disposed", "caseType": "Felony",
               "charges": [ { "statute": "PC 22.02", "description": "AGG ASSAULT W/DEADLY WEAPON",
                              "severity": "felony", "disposition": "GUILTY", "plea": "GUILTY" } ] } ],
  "normalized": {
    "rulesVersion": 1, "quality": "ok",
    "recordCategory": "court", "custodyStatus": "disposed",
    "sex": "M", "race": "W", "hair": null, "eyes": null,
    "residence": null,
    "jurisdiction": { "line1": null, "city": null, "county": "Harris", "countyFips": "48201",
                      "state": "TX", "zip5": null, "lat": null, "lng": null, "geoPrecision": "none" },
    "topSeverity": "felony", "hasConviction": true, "convictionCount": 1,
    "chargeCategories": ["assault"], "outcomes": ["convicted"],
    "latestOffenseDate": "2019-05-01", "latestDispositionDate": "2019-11-15",
    "latestFiledDate": "2019-05-03",
    "hasPhoto": false, "vacatedOrSealed": false,
    "cases": [ { "stage": "closed", "caseClass": "felony",
                 "charges": [ { "category": "assault", "notACharge": false,
                                "severity": "felony", "severityBasis": "published", "degree": null,
                                "outcome": "convicted", "convicted": true, "custodyEvent": null } ] } ]
  }
}

Criminal charge outcome classes

outcome on each charge, and outcomes on the record (every class present). convicted is true only for convicted.

Criminal charge severity and severityBasis

severity on each charge, and topSeverity (the highest) on the record. degree carries the source’s class or degree text, such as F3 or Class A, when stated.

severityBasis says what decided it, and is null when the severity is unknown. Filter with "severityBasis": ["published"] (together with severity) to trust only the source’s own label.

Criminal record and charge categories

recordCategory is the kind of record.

category on each charge says what it is about, and chargeCategories on the record lists every one present. notACharge: true marks text in a charge slot that is not an offense, such as a custody, supervision or caption entry.

Criminal custody status and custody events

custodyStatus is the person’s status on the record.

custodyEvent is a jail event listed against one charge. It is not a court outcome; the court outcome is outcome.

Criminal case stages and case classes

NCIC person codes on criminal records

sex, race, hair and eyes use the codes police systems use (NCIC). Each is null when the source publishes nothing, and the published words stay in the record’s own sex, race and physical.

Vacated and sealed criminal records: vacatedOrSealed

vacatedOrSealed is true when the source marks the record or a charge vacated, expunged or sealed. Such a record is marked and always returned; a vacated charge has the outcome vacated and convicted: false. A search leaves it out only when it sends excludeVacatedOrSealed: true.

The record also carries hasConviction, convictionCount, hasPhoto and its latest offense, filing and disposition dates, which the date filters and lookbackYears test.

The Normalized object — normalized criminal record fields

A record's normalized classes. Every value is our classification of a published fact; the fact itself stays in the record's own fields beside it. A value that cannot be decided from what was published is unknown or null, never a guess.

Returned or accepted by POST /v1/criminal/search, GET /v1/criminal/searches/{searchId}, POST /v1/criminal/batch, GET /v1/criminal/records/{recordId}.

The NormalizedPlace object — residence and jurisdiction

A place, normalized. Every text key is null when not known.

Returned or accepted by POST /v1/criminal/search, GET /v1/criminal/searches/{searchId}, POST /v1/criminal/batch, GET /v1/criminal/records/{recordId}.

The NormalizedCase object — case stage and class

One case, normalized, in the order of the record's cases[].

Returned or accepted by POST /v1/criminal/search, GET /v1/criminal/searches/{searchId}, POST /v1/criminal/batch, GET /v1/criminal/records/{recordId}.

The NormalizedCharge object — charge severity and outcome

One charge, normalized. The published statute, description, severity and disposition stay on the case's own charges[].

Returned or accepted by POST /v1/criminal/search, GET /v1/criminal/searches/{searchId}, POST /v1/criminal/batch, GET /v1/criminal/records/{recordId}.