To look up someone’s criminal record in California, start with the Superior Court in the county where the case was handled. That is where criminal cases are filed, tried, and stored, and it is the only comprehensive source open to members of the public. The statewide “rap sheet” maintained by the California Department of Justice (DOJ) is closed to third-party lookups and available only to the person named, law enforcement, and certain authorized agencies. There is no unified state search portal, so if you don’t know which county to check, you’ll need to narrow it down before you begin.
Start With the County Superior Court
Criminal cases in California are adjudicated in the Superior Court of the county where the offense occurred, and each court holds its own records. Before you search, gather the person’s full legal name, date of birth, and the county of the case if you can.
Most Superior Courts run an online public access portal where you can search by name or case number. If the county you need isn’t online, or you want to look at the actual case file, go to the court clerk’s office and use a public-access terminal. Clerks will also run a search for you.
Fees are set statewide by statute. A clerk-run search that takes longer than ten minutes costs $15.1California Legislative Information. California Code GOV 70627 – Superior Court Fees Regular copies of court documents are $0.50 per page. A certified copy, which you’d need for any official use, costs an additional $40 per document on top of the per-page charge.2California Legislative Information. California Code GOV 70626 – Superior Court Fees Requests can usually be made in person or by mail.
One caveat: courts purge old case files after a set retention period. If the case is decades old, the physical file may no longer exist even though the conviction still appears in the DOJ’s centralized database.
Why You Can’t Just Pull a State Rap Sheet
The DOJ maintains the state summary criminal history record, commonly called a rap sheet, and it holds the most complete picture of a person’s California criminal history. It is not open to the public. Access is limited to law enforcement, authorized licensing boards, and certain employers who run Live Scan fingerprint checks on applicants.
You can request your own rap sheet for personal review, but you cannot request one for anyone else. The process requires submitting your fingerprints through a Live Scan station and paying a $25 processing fee to the DOJ.3California Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General. Criminal Records – Request Your Own Live Scan stations sit inside police departments, UPS stores, and independent fingerprinting services throughout the state. The Live Scan operator charges its own rolling fee of roughly $20, which varies by location. Processing normally takes two to three days, but complex records can take up to two weeks.4California Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General. Frequently Asked Questions – Criminal Records
Reviewing your own record is worth doing before any job search or licensing application, because errors are common. A dismissed arrest may still show as open, and a sealed conviction may not have been updated.
The One Public Statewide Database: Megan’s Law
The one carve-out from the DOJ’s restriction on public access is the Megan’s Law website. Under Penal Code 290.46, the DOJ maintains a publicly searchable database of individuals required to register as sex offenders.5California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 290.46 – Sex Offenders You can search by name or by location. Results include the registrant’s name, photograph, physical description, date of birth, and, for qualifying offenders, residential address.
The registry is deliberately narrow. It covers only offenses that trigger a registration requirement, not general criminal history. Misusing information from the site carries real consequences: a misdemeanor committed using registry data can add a fine between $10,000 and $50,000, and using registry data to commit a felony adds a five-year prison term.6California Megan’s Law Website. Penalties for Misuse
What Won’t Show Up in a Public Search
A public search almost always returns an incomplete picture. California law removes several categories of records from public view.
Convictions dismissed under Penal Code 1203.4 have the guilty verdict set aside and the case dismissed. The record does not vanish entirely; it can still be used in a future prosecution and must be disclosed on applications for public office or certain state licenses.7California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 1203.4 – Dismissal of Accusation
Arrests that never led to a conviction can be sealed under Penal Code 851.91, which makes them invisible to most public searches.8California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 851.91 – Petition to Seal Arrest Records A person qualifies if no charges were ever filed and the statute of limitations has expired, if charges were filed and later dismissed, or if they were acquitted at trial. Some arrests are sealed automatically by the DOJ. Even after sealing, law enforcement retains access.
Juvenile records are sealed from public view as well.
What this means in practice: if a court search comes back clean, you have not confirmed the person has no criminal history. You have confirmed there is nothing publicly visible in the counties you checked.
Using a Private Background Check Service
Commercial background check companies pull from the same public court records anyone can access; they simply search across many counties at once. They do not have access to the DOJ’s rap sheet database. The convenience is real, and so are the tradeoffs: records may be outdated, incomplete, or attached to the wrong person, especially with common names.
California’s Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act caps how far back these reports can go. An investigative consumer report cannot include arrests, misdemeanor complaints, or convictions more than seven years old, measured from the date of disposition, release, or parole.9California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1786.18 – Reporting Restrictions Pardoned convictions and arrests that never led to conviction must be dropped from reporting entirely once the agency learns of the outcome. If a report you receive contains criminal records older than seven years, the reporting agency has likely violated state law.
Any report used to make a decision about someone’s employment, housing, or credit counts as a consumer report under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. For employment decisions specifically, the employer must obtain the applicant’s written permission before ordering the report, and if the report may lead to a negative decision, must give the applicant a copy of the report along with notice of adverse action, the name of the reporting agency, and the right to dispute inaccuracies.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports California’s Act layers on additional requirements, including that agencies can only furnish reports for recognized purposes such as employment, insurance, housing, or a court order.11California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1786 – Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act
Prices vary widely, from roughly $20 for a basic single-county search up to several hundred dollars for multi-state packages with identity verification. Free or very cheap services tend to run on stale data and shouldn’t be trusted for any decision that matters.
If You’re Looking for Hiring Purposes
California places some of the strongest limits in the country on how criminal records can be used in employment decisions. Two statutes matter.
Under Labor Code 432.7, employers cannot ask about or consider arrests that did not lead to a conviction (with a narrow exception for arrests where the applicant is currently out on bail or awaiting trial), participation in diversion programs, convictions that have been dismissed under Penal Code 1203.4 or otherwise sealed, or anything from juvenile court.12California Legislative Information. California Code LAB 432.7 – Arrest and Conviction Records
The Fair Chance Act applies to employers with five or more employees. Those employers cannot ask about conviction history on the application or at any point before making a conditional offer of employment. If a conviction surfaces after the offer and the employer wants to withdraw, it must first perform an individualized assessment of the offense, the time since the offense, and the nature of the job, then give the applicant written notice and at least five business days to respond before issuing a final decision.13California Legislative Information. California Code GOV 12952 – Fair Chance Act
The practical takeaway for anyone running a check in a hiring context: finding a record and acting on it are two different things, and California treats the second one as heavily regulated ground.