The City of Rochester maintains their own courts and have done so since the City was founded in 1837. They probably even had their own court when they were just a village.
City courts are low level courts. Like Town courts they can handle civil cases but whereas a Town courts can decide law suits up to $3,000, City Court can decide cases up to $15,000. I’m not sure why there would be a difference in the dollar amount in the law suits but New York State makes the rules.
City Court can decide owner/tenant cases up to any amount. There is a City Court calendar online. It changes daily but you will see that the majority cases heard by the City Court are owner (plaintiff) vs. tenant (respondent) disputes. On some days that calendar shows some small claim cases being heard. There may be a case or two of “Trial de Novo” which I had to look-up. Those are cases that had originally gone through arbitration then one of the parties disagrees with the finding and asks for a trial before a Judge.
I know that you are thinking about any old civil court records. I talked with the City Court Clerk and she said that they only had to keep those records for 20 years. Then she thought again and said that there may be some records back to the 1960s or 1970s. Older civil cases before that time no longer exist. So if you see a person involved in a law suit in the 1930s the only existing record would be old newspapers.
The City also handles criminal misdemeanors. It appears that most of those were were heard Police Court. If you look in the newspaper index that is in the Rochester Public Library, you will see thousands of references to “Courts, Police.” By looking at what they heard it appears that the top cases were of drunkenness, vagrancy, larcenies, and assaults. I found a reference in a obscure Rochester newspaper The Sun from Dec. 23, 1953 that said the Police Court heard about 40 cases per day and did 80 arraignments. Arraignments would have been for felonies for which the defendant would sent from City Court to County Court.
When I asked the City Court Clerk about criminal case, she again, thought that they only have cases back to the 1960s. A couple of days later a man in the City Court Clerk’s office said that they only have cases back to the 1980s. If you want to obtain any of these newer records you would need to fill out a Freedom of Information Law form (FOIL). It depends on the case on how much information you could be able to see. Some cases are closed by the Judge
Then I mentioned the Rochester Municipal Archives. The Clerk didn’t know what they have. So I called the Archives. Talked with a nice young man but he said he doesn’t have any idea if they have the old Police Court records or not. He suggested filing a FOIL request and they would see if they could find any court records among the 15,000 volumes of records that they have. I suspect that they don’t have the old Police Court records because…
About 20 or 25 years a man at a Rochester Public Market sale was selling a volume of Rochester Police Court records for $150. It was a huge volume as big as those old deed volumes. It probably had 600+ pages. I think it only covered 2 or 3 months from the 1880s. Each page had 4 or 5 cases. Each of those cases only was 5 or 6 lines which gave the name of the person, his charge, and disposition of the case. A couple of years later I went to a sale at a small apartment house near me and it was the same man that had the Police Court volume. He still had the volume at that time. Then I heard he died a few years after that. I wonder what ever happen to that volume. Even if it only covered a few months, wouldn’t you want to see it?
Again you best bet for City criminal court records would be old newspapers.
Did I make any mistakes? Do you have any suggestions about City Court records? Leave a comment or send me an email (dickhalsey@gmail.com).
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