To find out if someone is a felon, start with the court system that would have handled the case: most state courts offer free online record searches, and federal felonies show up in the federal judiciary’s PACER system. Court records are the most direct proof of a conviction because the conviction itself happened in court. State criminal-record repositories, local law enforcement, and the national sex offender registry fill in what a single court search will miss. No one tool is complete on its own, so a serious check usually means combining a few.
Search State Court Records First
Most states now run online portals where you can search by name, case number, or date of birth. Results typically list the charges filed, the outcome, and any sentence imposed. Some portals also show upcoming hearings. If the court where the case would have been filed has no online portal, the clerk of court’s office can pull the same information in person, sometimes for a copy fee.
One thing to be careful about: name matches are unreliable when the name is common. Courts don’t always publish enough identifying detail to tell two people apart, especially in the same county. Before treating a hit as your subject, line up case details against what you already know — age, address history, physical description if you have it. A wrong match is worse than no match.
Access rules vary by state. Some states put nearly everything online for free; others charge per-document fees or require a written request. There is no single national standard, and the federal Freedom of Information Act does not apply to courts, so you’re working with each state’s own public-records rules.1FOIA.gov. Freedom of Information Act – Frequently Asked Questions
Check the State Criminal Records Repository
Every state maintains a central criminal-records repository, usually run by the state police or department of justice. These systems compile arrests, charges, and dispositions from agencies across the state into one searchable database. Some states let anyone request a basic criminal history summary; others limit access to employers, landlords, or requesters with a specific legal reason.
You typically submit the person’s name and date of birth through an online portal or a mail-in form. Fees generally run from a few dollars up to around $25 for a name-based search. A few states also offer fingerprint-based searches, which confirm identity far more reliably but require the subject to provide their prints. Name searches cast a wider net and are more likely to return the wrong person; fingerprint searches eliminate that risk but can lag on disposition data, because not every court promptly reports final outcomes back to the repository.
A state repository only covers that state. If the person lived in more than one, you’ll need to check each state separately.
Use PACER for Federal Cases
Felonies prosecuted in federal court — drug trafficking, immigration offenses, financial fraud, firearms violations — won’t show up in state databases. The Public Access to Court Electronic Records system covers every federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy court.2Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Public Access to Court Electronic Records
Anyone can create a free PACER account. Searches and document views cost $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per document, and audio files of hearings cost $2.40 each. If your total charges for a quarter stay at $30 or less, the fees for that quarter are waived, so casual users often pay nothing.3Public Access to Court Electronic Records. PACER Pricing: How Fees Work One catch: you’re charged for search results even when the search returns nothing, so narrow your query before running it. PACER also lets you view the full case docket — every motion, order, and judgment — not just a summary.
Check the National Sex Offender Public Website
If your concern is specifically a sex offense, the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) pulls registry data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and tribal lands.4Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website. Search Public Sex Offender Registries Federal law requires every jurisdiction to make sex offender information publicly available online.5GovInfo. U.S.C. Title 34 – Crime Control and Law Enforcement
You can search by name, zip code, or a physical address with a radius of up to three miles. No account or fee is required, and results include the registrant’s photo, address, and offense details. The address-radius search only works for states that share geographic coordinates with NSOPW, and not all of them do. If a radius search comes back empty, try the name search.
Ask Local Law Enforcement
Local police departments and sheriff’s offices keep their own arrest and incident records. If you know where the person was arrested, contact that agency directly. Most require a written request, sometimes on a specific form, along with the person’s full name, date of birth, and any known aliases. Expect a small processing fee. Response times run from a few days to several weeks.
These records can catch recent arrests that haven’t yet produced a court filing. They also have limits: agencies generally won’t release records tied to active investigations, juvenile cases, or certain sensitive categories, and the exact rules vary by locality.
When to Hire a Licensed Private Investigator
If your subject moved around, used aliases, or has records scattered across several states, a licensed private investigator can go further than public databases. Investigators use proprietary aggregators and can legally access certain restricted address-history and identity-verification systems that are closed to the general public. They also verify that hits actually match your subject rather than someone with the same name.
Hourly rates typically fall between $50 and $150, and many investigators offer flat-fee packages for standard background checks. Confirm the investigator is licensed in the state where they will be working, and agree on scope and cost in writing before they begin.
Why a Search Might Show Nothing
A clean search doesn’t guarantee a clean record. The most common reason a felony is invisible is expungement or sealing. Many states allow people to petition a court to seal or expunge certain convictions after a waiting period, and a growing number have “clean slate” laws that automate the process for qualifying offenses. Once a record is sealed, background checks won’t return it, and nothing indicates a sealed record exists. There is no federal clean slate law currently in effect, though bipartisan legislation has been proposed in Congress that would automatically seal certain nonviolent federal convictions.
Other reasons are less dramatic. Courts can be slow to update their electronic databases. Older convictions may exist only on paper at the courthouse. And searching the wrong system entirely — checking state records for a federal case, or the wrong state altogether — will produce nothing even when a record exists.
If You’re Checking for a Hiring Decision
Looking someone up for your own information is one thing. Using that information to make a hiring decision triggers a separate set of federal rules that don’t apply to personal searches. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, an employer who orders a background check through a consumer reporting agency has to give the applicant a standalone written disclosure and get written authorization before the check is run.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b Reporting agencies cannot include arrest records older than seven years, though there is no federal time limit on convictions and the seven-year cap doesn’t apply to positions paying $75,000 or more per year.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports Some states set stricter limits than federal law.
If you plan to reject an applicant based on what a check reveals, the FCRA requires a pre-adverse-action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of the applicant’s rights, a reasonable window for the applicant to dispute inaccuracies, and then a final adverse-action notice.8Federal Trade Commission. What Employment Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act Separately, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidance holds that blanket policies rejecting anyone with a criminal record can violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act if they disproportionately affect a protected group; employers are expected to weigh the nature of the offense, the time since it occurred, and the nature of the job, and to give the applicant a chance to provide context.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions More than three dozen states have also adopted fair-chance or “ban the box” laws that push criminal-history questions until after a conditional job offer.
None of that applies to a personal search you’re running for your own reasons. But if the answer feeds into an employment decision, running your own informal search doesn’t substitute for the formal process, and using what you find without following it can create liability.