Santa Barbara County Court records

Series

Identifier: AR-2020-007

Staff Only

Finding Aid to Santa Barbara County Court records 1850-1908

Scope and Contents

The Santa Barbara County Court records contain over twenty-three hundred (2,300) individual court cases beginning with California statehood through the first decade of the twentieth century. The cases are organized in one large chronological series by date. The variety of court case represented span legal proceedings from debt settlement to probate to murder. The plaintiff and defendant names documented in these cases are a Who's Who of notable Santa Barbara Californios and early American settlers.

Dates

1850 - 1908

Creator

Santa Barbara County (Calif.). Superior Court (Organization)

Language of Materials

Although primarily in English, the earliest court cases are in Spanish owing to Santa Barbara citizens' gradual transition from a Latin culture-based interpersonal style of dispute resolution to a more prescribed form of American litigation.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Property rights reside with the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head Archivist of the Gledhill Library.

Biographical / Historical

As mandated by the California Constitution, each of the 58 counties in California has a superior court. The original California Constitution of 1849 and the California Judiciary Act of 1851 created multi-county district courts of general jurisdiction which supervised county courts and justice of the peace courts of limited jurisdiction.

The Superior Court was created in 1880 by provisions of the 1879 State Constitution. This court assumed the functions previously carried out by the District, Sessions, County, and Probate Courts. Cases are handled by one of four departments: criminal, civil, probate, and juvenile. Each county in California has its own Superior Court.

Extent

34 Linear Feet (– 2,329 files in 34 record storage boxes)

Additional Description

Abstract

The Santa Barbara County Court records contain over 2,300 court cases beginning with California statehood through the first decade of the 20th century. The variety of court cases represented span legal proceedings from debt settlement to probate to murder. The plaintiff and defendant names documented in these cases are a Who's Who of notable Santa Barbara Californios and early American settlers.

Arrangement

The Santa Barbara County Court records are organized into one large chronological series by date.

Other Finding Aids

Finding Aid to Santa Barbara County Court records 1850-1908, https://bit.ly/31y8eqj, Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Gledhill Library. (see Collection level "Online items available")

Original index cards to court records, Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Gledhill Library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The materials were acquired from Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

Related Materials

Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Gledhill Library. Canfield and Starbuck Law Firm Papers, 1866-1935. AR-2019-016. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c83b666b/

Processing Information

The Santa Barbara County Court records were processed by Kathi Brewster, Brigitte Forssell, and Andrée Steele from 1990-1992. Steele, a retired French attorney, and Brewster, a retired Santa Barbara paralegal, and Forssell, all multi-lingual, translated the early Spanish language cases during the processing cycle. A copy of Barron's Law Dictionary was employed. Additionally, four green metal boxes of original plaintiff and defendant index cards were checked against all physical case files and received new cards or corrections as necessary. Anecdotal information suggests an unquantified number of the original records under custody were lost during a basement flooding incident.