Colorado Criminal Records

Colorado sells its state criminal history to anyone, instantly, by name, and since July 2024 has been sealing records out of it automatically. The courts post dockets statewide but keep Denver's county court apart, and the Criminal Justice Records Act makes arrest records open by a rule that names them. This page gives the Colorado rule and the Colorado search for each record, with government sources only.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation's Internet Criminal History Check "allows users to obtain a Colorado only Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) name based background check instantaneously from a computing device," and the Bureau's records page states the rule: "All Colorado CHRI is accessible to the public," with the exceptions it lists, "juvenile arrests, traffic arrests under age 16, and sealed cases." The fee is a few dollars per result viewed, paid online, and anyone may run it on anyone. It is a name and date of birth search of the Bureau's file, arrests and dispositions as reported, and the criminal records page explains why a name match is a guess; the fingerprint version is for the person's own review and for the employers and licensing bodies the statutes name.

The Colorado Judicial Branch's docket search lists upcoming hearings in every state court, and its Data Access program provides the case records themselves, by name, for the district courts, which try felonies, and the county courts, which hear misdemeanors, with one exception the program states itself: "Denver District court records are included in the Colorado State Courts - Data Access program. Denver County court records are not included. Please navigate to Denver City & County Court to search Denver County court cases." So a Denver misdemeanor is searched at the city's own court, and everything else in the state system. The clerk of each court provides the documents. A background check company's "Colorado criminal record" is a Bureau result or a copy of the court data, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

Colorado seals under sections 24-72-703 through 24-72-706 of the Revised Statutes, which the Judicial Branch's sealing guide walks through: a case that ended without a conviction is sealed on motion in the same case at once; a conviction for a petty offense or drug petty offense after one year, a misdemeanor after two years, and eligible felonies after three to five years, with the violent, sex and driving offenses the statute lists excluded; and a denied petition under section 24-72-706 usually waits twelve months before it can be filed again. Since July 1, 2024 the Clean Slate Act, Senate Bill 22-099, has the State Court Administrator compile lists of eligible convictions each quarter and the courts seal them automatically, on the same criteria as the petition route. A sealed Colorado case leaves the court's public record and the Bureau's public check, and a copy that left before the order is reached through the federal rule on complete and up to date public records.

Colorado's Criminal Justice Records Act, in section 24-72-303, makes "records of official action," which the Act defines to include an arrest, the filing of charges and the disposition, open to inspection by any person, and, as the Judicial Branch's access guide tabulates, keeps other criminal justice records, the investigative file among them, open at the custodian's discretion under section 24-72-305; for records of official action the custodian "shall set a date and hour within three working days at which time the record will be available for inspection." Who is in custody is in the Department of Corrections' offender search, reached from the state's find an inmate page, and in the county sheriffs' locators, Denver's detention center search among them. The arrest records page covers the rest.

A Colorado judgment lien on real property, created by recording a transcript of judgment with the county clerk and recorder, lasts six years from entry and may be renewed by recording a new transcript before it expires, and the judgment itself may be enforced for twenty years under section 13-52-102 of the Revised Statutes. A Colorado judgment older than six years with no renewed transcript is not a lien, and one older than twenty is not enforceable. The court records page covers where the judgments are searched.

Colorado is a single federal judicial district, the District of Colorado, under 28 U.S.C. 85, and court is held at Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, Durango, Grand Junction, Montrose, Pueblo and Sterling. A federal criminal case from any Colorado county is on that court's docket and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a Colorado record: the Bureau's internet check answers it instantly by name, sealed cases left out.

Whether a person was charged in a court: the state courts' data access answers it for every court but Denver County, which answers for itself.

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

Whether an old case can still be found: a sealed case is out of the court record and the Bureau's check, a judgment lien lapses at six years without renewal, and a copy that predates a sealing is reached through the federal rule.