Arizona Criminal Records

Arizona closes its state criminal history and opens its courts. The Department of Public Safety does not run a public name search; it issues fingerprint clearance cards to the people the statutes require to carry one and lets a person review their own record. The courts, by contrast, post case information from 153 of the state's 180 courts on one public site, and the superior court records since 2010 on another. This page gives the Arizona rule and the Arizona search for each record, with government sources only.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety's criminal history records page explains that the governing statute, A.R.S. 41-1750, "does not provide" for public access to the state repository: criminal history is released to criminal justice agencies, to the agencies and employers the statutes name, and to the person it describes. A person reviews their own record through the Department's record review process, with a fingerprint card "taken to a law enforcement agency to be fingerprinted." For the jobs the law regulates, Arizona uses a fingerprint clearance card: "Arizona Revised Statutes require" the card "prior to or as a condition of licensure, certification, or employment" in the listed fields, and the Department's clearance card section "receives applications and reviews criminal history records of applicants." No employer, landlord or company can buy an Arizona rap sheet, so an "Arizona criminal record" from a background check company is a copy of the court records below.

The Arizona Judicial Branch's Public Access to Court Information is "a valuable online service providing a resource for information about court cases from 153 out of 180 courts in Arizona," searched by name or case number, covering the justice courts, municipal courts and superior courts that participate, with the case type, the charges and the disposition. Its companion, eAccess, "provides convenient 24/7 online access to Arizona Superior Court case records for civil and criminal cases that were filed on or after July 1, 2010, except that Pima County criminal case records are only available for cases that were filed on or after July 1, 2015," with the documents themselves for a fee. The 27 courts not on the public access site, and the cases before 2010, are at the clerk of the superior court in each county or the court that heard them. Felonies are superior court cases; misdemeanors are justice court cases in the county and municipal court cases inside a city; and, as everywhere, the index is a name search, which the criminal records page explains.

Arizona sets aside rather than expunges, and since 2023 it also seals. Under A.R.S. 13-905, which, as the Pinal County Superior Court notes, "governs the setting aside of a criminal judgment," a person who has completed the sentence may apply to the sentencing court to set aside the conviction, which leaves the record public but marks it as set aside and restores civil rights, with the offenses the statute lists excluded. Since January 1, 2023, A.R.S. 13-911 lets a person petition to seal the arrest, charge and conviction records after a waiting period that runs from the end of the sentence, ten years for the most serious felonies down to two years for a misdemeanor, and at once for a charge that was dismissed or ended in acquittal. A sealed Arizona case leaves the public court index and the Department's public dissemination, and a copy that left before the order is reached through the federal rule on complete and up to date public records.

Arizona's public records law, A.R.S. 39-121 and following, opens arrest and booking records as it does the rest of an agency's files, and adds a rule the databases meet every day: the Department of Public Safety's request page notes that "pursuant to A.R.S. 39-121.03, when requests for copies, printouts or photographs of public records are for a commercial purpose, the requestor shall provide a statement setting forth the commercial purpose for which the copies, printouts or photographs will be used," and the agency may charge accordingly. Who is in custody is in the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry's inmate data search, which sends anyone who wants the details of an offense to "the case file at the Office of the Clerk of the Court where the case was adjudicated," and in the county sheriffs' jail searches, Maricopa County's for Phoenix. The arrest records page covers the rest.

An Arizona judgment is enforceable for ten years and renewable. Under A.R.S. 12-1551, "the party in whose favor a judgment is given, at any time within ten years after entry of the judgment and within ten years after any renewal of the judgment either by affidavit or by an action brought on it, may have a writ of execution or other process issued for its enforcement," the period having been doubled from five years in 2018. A judgment recorded with the county recorder is a lien on the debtor's real property in that county for the same period. The court records page covers where the judgments are searched.

Arizona is a single federal judicial district, the District of Arizona, under 28 U.S.C. 82, and court is held at Flagstaff, Globe, Phoenix, Prescott, Tucson and Yuma. A federal criminal case from any Arizona county is on that court's docket and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has an Arizona conviction: the courts answer it, on the public access site for 153 courts and through eAccess for superior court cases since 2010, by name; the Department's file answers it only for the person and the agencies the law names.

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

Whether an old case can still be found: a set-aside conviction stays on the docket marked set aside, a sealed case is out of the public index, a judgment expires at ten years unless renewed, and a copy that predates a sealing is reached through the federal rule.