Hi all. I am wanting to look up someone’s criminal record in California, and I can’t figure out how to do it. If someone knows how, I would take it as a kindness if instructions were given. Thanks.
I know of no way for the General Public to do so. CA is not one of the states where such info is public. Mind you, of course you can look up a particlar case, etc, but AFAIK, there’s no list where you can see if any given person has a record.
Of course, you can check if they are on the sex offender list.
Thanks. It was starting to seem that way as I sniffed around.
Hmm, do you know what county(ies) they may have been arrested in?
If you google “[county name] california clerk of courts” you can get to records sites, and then search through there.
Here is the Orange County California site. I don’t know if you can do this for all counties, tho.
You sure about that, DrDeth? I just found this site which says otherwise. There are probably loopholes/exemptions from getting some info, and this pdf has more info for OP. I have never dealt with any Cali records, so I am totally ignorant of this other than those two sites. Kinda looks like it’ll take a written request, but there may be online access as well. Try calling the jurisdiction and ask a person there (Courthouse is best, imho).
No it doesn’t. "*Access to criminal history summary records maintained by the DOJ is restricted by law to legitimate law enforcement purposes and authorized applicant agencies. However, individuals have the right to request a copy of their own criminal history record from the Department to review for accuracy and completeness. Requests from third parties are not authorized and will not be processed.
To receive a copy of YOUR criminal history record, individuals must submit fingerprint images, pay a $25 processing fee to the DOJ, and follow the instructions below."*
So, yes, I am sure, since the OP seems to want to check someone elses record. I do this for a living, perhaps you don’t know that.
Yes, sometimes you can check in a particular County’s records.
California is contracted state wide in Vinelink.
https://www.vinelink.com/vinelink/tiles2-multiple-sites-home.do
Nope to what?
Not to argue with ya, DrDeth…but the fee is for the so-called ‘criminal history summary’, I think (aka background check?). I was thinking more of the individual records (not lumped together, so to speak) which seemed to be available without the officialdom, as stated in that pdf. No idea if OP wants the ‘official version’ or whatever info is to be found by an individual searching on their own.
Contacting County Clerks helped a LOT, fwiw. Here is list of Cqli counties with links to their (searchable) sites. Mendocino County doesn’t charge for searches, but looks like LA does, so it seems to be up to each place as to how the searches are handled. If OP does not know exactly where person is/was, might be lots of searching through all the Counties until happy with results. Certainly no fingerprints were needed for my having just viewed several folk’s info from a few random counties across the State of California.
If OP is not wanting ‘official document’, this should help quite a bit, I hope 
Fee or no “”**Access to criminal history summary records maintained by the DOJ is restricted by law to legitimate law enforcement purposes and authorized applicant agencies. **However, individuals have the right to request a copy of their own criminal history record from the Department to review for accuracy and completeness. Requests from third parties are not authorized and will not be processed.
To receive a copy of YOUR criminal history record,… " (bolding mine) . In other words, there is no way for a non LEO (or applicant agency) to check anyone elses criminal record on a statewide basis.
The pdf you link to has nothing to do with *criminal *records at all, it concerns Public Records, such things as meeting minutes, Memos, Bills, statements of economic interest, Department publications, and so forth.
But as I said, one *could *check county by county, not all counties allow checks by name, and most have a different system.
Nope to the fact that California denies public access. Public records are available partly through the link I provided and separately for minor crimes through pay sites that research county records individually.
VINE doesn’t search for Criminal records- it searchs for "The California State Victim Notification service (VINE) helps victims of crime obtain information about the custody status of their offender and is provided to you by your local sheriff. " If you are looking for someone out on parole for a major crime, it has it’s uses- but for someone convicted of DUI in 1974 it is not helpful. And, you need quite a bit of info to get a good “hit”.
Pay sites do exist, of course, but they need to access each County (and each County has different access and rules) , and they aren’t always reliable. One could also hire a PI.
IANAL but I can definitely say this isn’t always true. I had the same sort of questions once, and found that Riverside County provides much of this information online at no charge. I don’t know which other counties do it, if any. You could start by looking up the Superior Court’s website for the counties you’re interested in.
For example, here’s the link for L.A. County.
http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/
Every county seems to have their own Superior Court website, even though they all operate under the same set of laws. The Federal court system has its own website, and IIRC they have an inexpensive subscription service which lets you research parties and cases with ease.
DOJ, that’s Federal, right? They don’t dictate state court policies, do they?
Yes, I have said this several times, one could go County by County, some Counties do allow such checks- well they all do, in some way shape or form, but the info isn’t always easy to get at.
No, that’s the *California State *Dept of Justice.
I want to clarify a bit. I just thought, after re-reading the OP, that I am not sure what he is looking for.
If he thinks he knows that someone has a record, and he knows some personal info, and that record happens to be a fairly recent felony, he may very well have luck. He can try the VINE system **Al Bundy **suggested or go County by County. The OP may very well be able to confirm that his “suspect” has such a record.
But, there’s no way for the public to search which will confirm to any degree that a person does NOT have a CA Criminal record.
In fact, it’s actually moderately difficult even for LEO’s to confirm that, due to how each County inputs and sends their Court data. Many Counties use outdated custom systems, some are still DOS based (hell, sometimes I think some still haven’t updated to parchment from clay tablets- I kid you not when I tell you that many forms at the local level must still be typed, they can not be word processed). Not all Counties have entered all old data into any system.
So, if Soul Brother Number Two wants to check whether or not a given person was convicted of Murder in the late 1990s in LA County, he has a good shot. But if he wants to make sure the person he’s dealing with has no Criminal Record at all, he is SOL- without spending money, that is.