Alabama Criminal Records

Alabama is one of the few states where every circuit and district court feeds one case management system, so a single statewide search reaches the criminal dockets of all 67 counties, for a fee, one case at a time. The state's own fingerprint file is not sold to strangers: the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency releases it by fingerprint, for $25, to the person it describes, and to anyone that person authorizes in writing. The arrest itself is public under the state's one-sentence public records law, while the investigative report behind it is closed by another statute. This page gives the Alabama rule and the Alabama search for each record, with government sources only.

The Administrative Office of Courts, at alacourt.gov, runs the case management system for the trial courts, and its public portal, AlaCourt Access, offers, in its own capitals, "ON-DEMAND Access To Alabama State Trial Court Records... One Case At a Time." The portal describes what a search buys: "Case Detail report includes basic case information, court action, case status, setting dates, party information, financial history, and a detailed case action summary," and it warns that "a search result indicating 'No Matching Records on File' is a search," which is to say a paid one. Felonies are tried in the circuit courts, one for each of the 41 judicial circuits, and misdemeanors in the district courts in each county, with the preliminary stages of felonies in district court; both are on the system. Municipal ordinance cases, including most city misdemeanors and traffic, are in the municipal courts, and those are on the state system only where the city has joined it. The appellate courts have their own public portal, and the circuit clerk in each county still keeps the file and certify copies at the counter.

A background check company's "Alabama criminal record" is almost always a copy of this same system, pulled on some earlier date, and the criminal records page explains what such a copy misses and why a name in a docket is not yet a person.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's background check page sets the rule: "For public background check purposes, please complete the ALEA Application to Review Alabama Criminal History Record Information (CHRI). The applicant will have to be fingerprinted, provide a copy of the current photo ID, the AL CHRI application, and a payment of $25.00 in the form of a money order." The application itself is marked "personal requests only," requires "the required $25.00 administrative fee (must be in the form of a money order or Cashier's check made payable to the ALEA, Criminal Records and Identification Unit)," and carries the line by which the subject can hand the result to someone else: "I hereby authorize the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to release any and all criminal history information to." The Agency's Criminal Records Identification Unit "maintains fingerprint files for all arrested offenders in the state of Alabama," and its Records Check Section "provides requested criminal background information as applicable by law," which for employers and licensing boards means the fingerprint checks the statutes authorize. So an Alabama state record reached by name, without the person's fingerprints and signature, did not come from the state; it came from a copy of the court index.

Alabama expunges under Code of Alabama Title 15, Chapter 27. Section 15-27-1 lets "a person who has been charged with a misdemeanor offense, violation, traffic violation, or municipal ordinance violation" file "a petition in the criminal division of the circuit court in the county in which the charges were filed, to expunge records relating to the charge" when the charge was dismissed with prejudice, no-billed, or ended in acquittal, or was dismissed without prejudice and not refiled after the waiting period the section sets; Section 15-27-2 does the same for felony charges that did not end in conviction, with longer waits for the dismissals without prejudice. The REDEEMER Act of 2021, Act 2021-286, added convictions for the first time: a misdemeanor conviction may be expunged three years after the sentence is completed, subject to the lifetime limit the Act sets, and a felony conviction that has been pardoned may be expunged 180 days after the pardon, with the violent and sex offenses the chapter lists excluded. The petition carries the administrative filing fee set in Section 15-27-4 on top of the court's own costs, goes to the district attorney and the arresting agency for objection, and an expunged record is removed from the court's index and the state repository, though the statute keeps it available to the courts and law enforcement for the purposes it names. A copy sold before the order keeps the case, and the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page, is what forces the copy to catch up.

Alabama's public records law is a single sentence, Code of Alabama Section 36-12-40: "Every citizen has a right to inspect and take a copy of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute." The exception that matters for arrests is Section 12-21-3.1, which makes "law enforcement investigative reports and related investigative material" privileged and states that they "are not public records" and are not subject to civil subpoena. The line therefore falls where it does in most states: the fact of the arrest, the charge, the booking and the jail roster are public writings, and the investigator's file is not. Who is in custody is posted by the sheriffs, the Jefferson County Sheriff's inmate inquiry for Birmingham and Bessemer among them, whose corrections division "processes approximately 43,000 inmates in and out of jail annually," and by the Department of Corrections' inmate search for state prisoners. Those rosters are what the arrest databases scrape, and the arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the roster.

An Alabama judgment lives twenty years and its lien ten. Under Code of Alabama Section 6-9-211, a certificate of judgment filed in the probate office under Section 6-9-210 "shall be a lien in the county where filed on all property of the defendant which is subject to levy and sale under execution, and such lien shall continue for 10 years after the date of such judgment." Section 6-9-191 presumes a judgment satisfied ten years after entry unless an execution has kept it alive, and Section 6-9-190 bars revival after twenty years. The court records page covers where the civil dockets and the probate judgment records are searched.

Alabama is divided into three federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 81, each in divisions. The Northern District's Northwestern Division covers the counties of Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale and Lawrence, with court at Florence; its Northeastern Division covers Cullman, Jackson, Limestone, Madison, Marshall and Morgan, with court at Huntsville; its Southern Division covers Blount, Jefferson and Shelby, with court at Birmingham; its Eastern Division covers Calhoun, Cherokee, Clay, Cleburne, DeKalb, Etowah, Saint Clair and Talladega, with court at Anniston; and its Western Division covers Bibb, Fayette, Greene, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker and Winston, with court at Tuscaloosa. The Middle District's Northern Division covers Autauga, Barbour, Bullock, Butler, Chilton, Coosa, Covington, Crenshaw, Elmore, Lowndes, Montgomery and Pike, with court at Montgomery; its Southern Division covers Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Henry and Houston, with court at Dothan; and its Eastern Division covers Chambers, Lee, Macon, Randolph, Russell and Tallapoosa, with court at Opelika. The Southern District's Northern Division covers Dallas, Hale, Marengo, Perry and Wilcox, with court at Selma, and its Southern Division covers Baldwin, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe and Washington, with court at Mobile. A federal case from any Alabama county is on one of those three dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person was charged in an Alabama circuit or district court: AlaCourt Access answers it statewide, by name, for a fee per case, and the circuit clerk certifies the answer.

Whether a person has an Alabama state record: the Agency's $25 fingerprint check answers it, for the person, or for whoever the person authorizes on the form.

Whether a person was arrested: the fact of the arrest and the booking are public writings under Section 36-12-40, and the investigative report is closed under Section 12-21-3.1.

Whether a person is in custody now: the county sheriff's inmate search answers it, and the Department of Corrections for state prison.

Whether an old case can still be found: an expunged case is off the court index and the state repository, a judgment lien lapses at ten years and the judgment at twenty, and a copy that predates the expungement is reached through the federal rule.