case-document-search-retrieval

Hawaii eCourt Kōkua Case, Schedule & Document Search

Purpose

Search Hawaii State Judiciary public court records through the JIMS **eCourt Kōkua** portal (jimspss1.courts.state.hi.us/eCourt/`) and pull the printable report for a case, its event schedule, or its documents. One universal skill covers all five search surfaces the portal exposes: (1) party search by person / business-agency name or Party ID, (2) vehicle search by license plate or VIN, (3) case search by Case ID / citation / OTN / SID / arrest number, (4) upcoming court hearings by Case ID or court/location, and (5) view / purchase document subscriptions. Read-only for search and report retrieval; the document-purchase flow is a paid transaction and should stop before payment unless explicitly asked. Returns structured case metadata plus the generated PDF report URL ("Printable Calendar View" / "Printable View").

When to Use

• Look up all Hawai`i cases tied to a person, business, or government agency by name or Party ID.
• Find cases attached to a vehicle by license plate (+ state) or VIN.
• Pull a specific case's details, charges/violations, disposition, event schedule, and docket by Case ID, citation number, OTN, SID, arrest number, application number, or TCT number.
• Check a case's upcoming court hearing dates/times/rooms, or list hearings by court and location.
• Retrieve the print-ready PDF report of a case or its calendar/schedule.
• Look up or purchase electronic copies of court documents (Purchase ID lookup, or new purchase via JEFS).

Workflow

This portal is a stateful ICEfaces/JSF application: every navigation and search is an AJAX partial page update that keeps the same *.iface URL and mutates page content in place. There is no public JSON/REST API and deep links do not work — a fresh URL hit lands on the disclaimer or an error.iface page because view state and the jsessionid cookie are required. recommended_method is therefore browser, and every page-driving step must re-snapshot after an action (refs invalidate on each DOM swap) and judge success by page content, not by URL.

1. Start a stealth remote session

A bare/local browser gets permanently stuck on the disclaimer because the Accept button runs an invisible reCAPTCHA Enterprise challenge. Use a Browserbase remote session with stealth + residential proxy:

sid=$(browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive --verified --proxies \
  | node -e "let s='';process.stdin.on('data',c=>s+=c).on('end',()=>process.stdout.write(JSON.parse(s).id))")
export BROWSE_SESSION="$sid"

2. Accept the disclaimer

browse open "https://jimspss1.courts.state.hi.us/eCourt/" --remote   # → ECCDisclaimer.iface
browse snapshot --remote                                             # find "Press to Accept" button
browse click "@<accept-ref>" --remote
browse wait timeout 12000 --remote                                   # invisible reCAPTCHA resolves (~10-14s)
browse snapshot --remote                                             # confirm Home menu appeared

Success = the content changes to the Home menu listing the five tabs: Party Search, Vehicle Search, Case Search, Upcoming Court Hearings Search, View / Purchase Documents. The URL stays on ECCDisclaimer.iface — that is normal (AJAX update).

3. Pick the tab for the user's request

Click the top-nav link (all render as content swaps under the same session):

Optional narrowing on most forms: Case Type dropdown (full enum, e.g. TI - Traffic Infraction, PC - Circuit Court Criminal, CV - Circuit Court Civil, DV - Divorce, SC - Small Claim, …), Beginning/Ending Case Filing Date, and on Name Search the Phonetic and Partial search checkboxes.

4. Fill and submit

browse fill "@<lastNameRef>" "Smith" --remote
browse fill "@<firstNameRef>" "John" --remote
browse click "@<searchButtonRef>" --remote          # "Press to Search"
browse wait timeout 12000 --remote                  # each search form has its OWN invisible reCAPTCHA
browse snapshot --remote

5. Read results / open a case

Results render as a table: Party Name · Case · Case Type · Filing Date · Next Event · Party Type · Party ID, with a header like 198 case(s) found, displaying 20 case(s), from 1 to 20. Page 1 / 10 (20 rows/page — paginate for more). Each row exposes two links:

• Case ID (e.g. 1DTI-26-805268) → opens Case Details.
• Party ID (e.g. @1790616) → lists every case for that party.

Click the Case ID. Case Details render under the Case Search tab with: Case Description (Case ID, caption e.g. State v. John C Smith -NON JURY-, Type, Status, Filing Date, Court, Location, Balance Due, CDL/CMV/HAZ, Citation/Arrest, Alleged Speed), a Violations table (Violation · Disposition · Sentence), a Case Event Schedule table (Event · Date · Time · Room · Location · Judge · Chambers), and the Docket list.

6. Pull the printable report (PDF)

On the Case Details view click "Printable Calendar View" (on a results list it is labeled "Printable View"). Both are <a target="_blank"> links whose href is a server-generated PDF:

https://jimspss1.courts.state.hi.us/eCourt/icefaces/resource/<base64-token>/report.pdf

Extract the href (browse get html body → grep report.pdf) and/or browse open it in the same session to render/download. The token is session-scoped and expires with the session — do not cache it across sessions.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Stealth is mandatory. A non-stealth (local or bare remote) session is permanently blocked at the disclaimer: the Accept button's executeCaptcha() never yields a valid token and the page never advances. --verified --proxies remote sessions pass reliably. Verified across runs — the host pre-run probe reported "no anti-bot" on the bare homepage, but that homepage is only a 5-second meta-refresh redirect to /eCourt; the real gate is the reCAPTCHA on ECCDisclaimer.iface.
• Invisible reCAPTCHA Enterprise on every submit. The disclaimer and every search "Press to Search" button run an invisible challenge (site key 6LcbZEkUAAAAAHMdU1qVQGmPdOI2g_70k1TJHK7v). Always browse wait timeout ~12000 after clicking Accept/Search, then re-snapshot; if the old form is still showing, wait another 5-8s before concluding failure. The reCAPTCHA badge often shows "This site is exceeding reCAPTCHA Enterprise free quota" — it still fails-open for stealth sessions, so ignore that banner.
• Never judge navigation by URL. This is ICEfaces — Accept, tab clicks, searches, and case drill-downs are all AJAX partial updates that keep the same *.iface URL (e.g. Case Details stays on CaseSearch.iface). Judge state by page content / titles only.
• Re-snapshot after every action. Refs ([5-33] style) are regenerated on each DOM swap; a ref from a previous snapshot will error ("Unknown ref … have 0 refs") on a fresh session or after any update.
• No deep-linking / no API. Hitting a form URL directly (e.g. .../CaseSearch.iface) without the established session lands on the disclaimer or error.iface. There is no JSON endpoint; the site is a JSF/ICEfaces server-rendered app (X-Powered-By: JSF/2.0, ice.push/icefaces resources). Don't waste time probing for a REST/GraphQL shortcut — confirmed none.
• Session cookies matter. jsessionid (path /eCourt), ice.push.browser, and a LOADBALANCER cookie pin you to one backend node; losing them mid-flow drops view state. Keep everything inside one --keep-alive session.
• Printable report is a session-scoped PDF. The report.pdf under /eCourt/icefaces/resource/<token>/ only resolves within the same authenticated session; the <token> (base64, e.g. MTI1NDk5MTQzNg==) changes per generation. Fetch it in-session; a cross-session curl will fail.
• Required fields. Name Search requires Last Name and First Name (both *). License Plate Search requires License Plate. Case ID hearing search requires a Case ID. Missing a required field re-renders the form with a validation message instead of results.
• Result cap / pagination. Broad queries return many pages (20 rows/page; e.g. "Smith, John" = 198 cases / 10 pages). Add Case Type or a filing-date range to narrow; paginate with the Next/page controls for the full set.
• Confidential/sealed cases are omitted. Sealed cases, confidential-by-law events, and some pleadings never appear online (per the disclaimer and the hearings-tab note). A "not found" can mean confidential, not nonexistent.
• Document purchase is paid & non-refundable. The View/Purchase Documents "New Documents" flow charges statutory fees + a 2.6% Hawai`i Information Consortium processing fee, and purchased docs are viewable only ~2 days. Registration/subscription happens in the separate JEFS system (external link). Stop before payment unless explicitly instructed. "Purchased Documents" lets you re-view a prior purchase via Purchase ID + email.

Expected Output

Party / vehicle / case search that resolves to one or more cases, with the printable report URL:

{
  "success": true,
  "search_type": "party_name",
  "query": { "last_name": "Smith", "first_name": "John" },
  "result_count": 198,
  "page": "1 / 10",
  "results": [
    {
      "party_name": "Smith Jr, John C",
      "case_id": "1DTI-26-805268",
      "caption": "State v. John C Smith",
      "case_type": "TI - Traffic Infraction",
      "filing_date": "2026-06-20",
      "party_type": "Defendant",
      "party_id": "@1790616"
    }
  ],
  "case_detail": {
    "case_id": "1DTI-26-805268",
    "caption": "State v. John C Smith -NON JURY-",
    "case_type": "TI - Traffic Infraction",
    "status": "ACTIVE - Active Case",
    "filing_date": "2026-06-20",
    "court": "FIRST CIRCUIT",
    "location": "WAI`ANAE DIVISION",
    "balance_due": "$0.00",
    "violations": [ { "violation": "…", "disposition": "…", "sentence": "…" } ],
    "event_schedule": [ { "event": "…", "date": "…", "time": "…", "room": "…", "location": "…", "judge": "…" } ],
    "docket": [ { "docket_no": "1", "date": "2026-06-20", "docket": "Notice of …", "party": "…" } ]
  },
  "printable_report_pdf_url": "https://jimspss1.courts.state.hi.us/eCourt/icefaces/resource/MTI1NDk5MTQzNg==/report.pdf",
  "error_reasoning": null
}

Upcoming-hearings lookup by Case ID:

{
  "success": true,
  "search_type": "upcoming_hearings",
  "query": { "case_id": "1DTI-26-805268" },
  "hearings": [
    { "event": "Chambers Review", "date": "2027-09-24", "time": "8:00 AM", "room": "…", "location": "…", "judge": "…" }
  ],
  "printable_report_pdf_url": "https://jimspss1.courts.state.hi.us/eCourt/icefaces/resource/<token>/report.pdf",
  "error_reasoning": null
}

Document-subscription view (read-only, pre-payment):

{
  "success": true,
  "search_type": "documents",
  "mode": "view_purchased",
  "query": { "purchase_id": "…", "email": "…" },
  "documents": [ { "title": "…", "available_until": "2026-08-02", "download_url": "…" } ],
  "note": "New purchases route through JEFS; fees are statutory + 2.6% processing, non-refundable, ~2-day access.",
  "error_reasoning": null
}

No-match / blocked outcomes:

{ "success": false, "search_type": "case_id", "query": { "case_id": "9XYZ-99-9999999" }, "result_count": 0, "error_reasoning": "No cases found matching the criteria (note: sealed/confidential cases are never shown online)." }

{ "success": false, "error_reasoning": "Stuck on ECCDisclaimer.iface — invisible reCAPTCHA did not clear. Retry with a --verified --proxies remote session and wait 12s+ after clicking Accept." }