Georgia Criminal Records

Georgia keeps its state criminal history at the Georgia Crime Information Center and hands it out through the sheriffs, on a rule that turns on one word: consent. With the person's signed consent, an employer or anyone else can get the full state record for a fee that the law caps at $20. Without consent, only felony convictions are released, through the state's own Felon Search. The court files sit with 159 clerks of superior court, and the arrest reports are public by name under the Open Records Act. This page gives the Georgia rule and the Georgia search for each record, with government sources only.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation's questions page states the rule: "Without written consent, only felony conviction CHRI is disseminated in compliance with O.C.G.A. § 35-3-34. This information may also be obtained from local law enforcement agencies; fees vary." With the person's written consent, the sheriff's office or police department runs the full record, and the Bureau says "you can obtain a copy of your Georgia criminal history record from most Sheriff's Offices or Police Departments." Paulding County's sheriff, for one, charges $10 for residents and $20 for everyone else, and requires the consent form to be signed at the office with identification. The no-consent route is the state's Georgia Felon Search, where "only felony convictions that have been reported to the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC) are searched and returned," at "$15 for each record you choose to view and print."

So a Georgia background check without the person's signature shows felony convictions only, and nothing about misdemeanors, arrests, dismissals or pending cases. Those are in the court files.

Felonies are tried in the superior courts, one per county, and their files are kept by each county's elected clerk of superior court; misdemeanors are tried in the state courts, in the counties that have them, or in the superior court where they do not, and the magistrate and probate courts handle the rest. The Fulton County clerk, the largest, lets the public "register to view criminal and civil judicial records online" through its eServices platform, and the other clerks run their own searches or share a vendor's, several only at the counter. Georgia has no free statewide court search; the county pages on this site link each clerk. A copy of a clerk's index is what the private databases hold, and the criminal records page explains what such a copy misses.

Georgia does not expunge; it restricts and seals. Under O.C.G.A. 35-3-37, a charge that was dismissed, not prosecuted, or ended in acquittal is restricted from the state history on application, so that it no longer appears on a Georgia Crime Information Center report, and the court file may then be sealed by order. Senate Bill 288, effective January 1, 2021, extended restriction and sealing to convictions for the first time: up to two misdemeanor convictions in a lifetime, four years after the sentence is completed with no new offenses, and pardoned felonies, with the violent and sex offenses the statute lists excluded. A restricted record is still visible to law enforcement and to the licensing agencies the law names, and a copy sold before the restriction is reached through the federal rule on complete and up to date public records.

Georgia's Open Records Act draws the same line as most states, and the Attorney General's guide for law enforcement states it for the police: "initial incident and police arrest reports are subject to the Act's disclosure requirements, regardless of whether they are part of an active investigation," under O.C.G.A. 50-18-72, while the rest of a pending investigation is exempt. So the fact of a Georgia arrest, the charge and the initial report are public from the day they are written, which is what the sheriffs' booking pages publish and what the databases scrape. Who is in custody is found through the state's find an offender page, which searches the Department of Corrections for anyone "currently serving in Georgia Department of Corrections facilities" and sends jail searches to "the county's website." Booking photographs are the subject of two Georgia statutes, covered on the arrest records page: a sheriff may not give them to anyone who will charge for removal, and a site that posts them must take them down within thirty days of a written request when the case ended without a conviction.

A Georgia judgment goes dormant seven years after it is entered unless an execution is issued and entered on the county's general execution docket within that time, under O.C.G.A. 9-12-60, and a dormant judgment may be revived within three years. A judgment on the general execution docket is a lien on the debtor's property in that county, which is why a Georgia asset search runs through the clerk's execution docket as well as the deed records. The court records page covers where each is searched.

Georgia is divided into three federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 90, each in divisions. The Northern District sits at Atlanta for Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, De Kalb, Douglas, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton and Rockdale; at Gainesville for Banks, Barrow, Dawson, Fannin, Forsyth, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, Union and White; at Rome for Bartow, Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Floyd, Gordon, Murray, Paulding, Polk, Walker and Whitfield; and at Newnan for Carroll, Coweta, Fayette, Haralson, Heard, Meriwether, Pike, Spalding and Troup. The Middle District sits at Athens, Macon, Columbus, Americus, Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville: Athens for Clarke, Elbert, Franklin, Greene, Hart, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe and Walton; Macon for Baldwin, Bibb, Bleckley, Butts, Crawford, Hancock, Houston, Jasper, Jones, Lamar, Monroe, Peach, Pulaski, Putnam, Twiggs, Upson, Washington and Wilkinson; Columbus for Chattahoochee, Clay, Harris, Marion, Muscogee, Quitman, Randolph, Stewart, Talbot and Taylor; Americus for Ben Hill, Crisp, Dooly, Lee, Macon, Schley, Sumter, Terrell, Webster and Wilcox; Albany for Baker, Calhoun, Dougherty, Early, Miller, Mitchell, Turner and Worth; Valdosta for Berrien, Clinch, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes and Tift; and Thomasville for Brooks, Colquitt, Decatur, Grady, Seminole and Thomas. The Southern District sits at Augusta for Burke, Columbia, Glascock, Jefferson, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Taliaferro, Warren and Wilkes; Dublin for Dodge, Johnson, Laurens, Montgomery, Telfair, Treutlen and Wheeler; Savannah for Bryan, Chatham, Effingham and Liberty; Waycross for Atkinson, Bacon, Brantley, Charlton, Coffee, Pierce and Ware; Brunswick for Appling, Camden, Glynn, Jeff Davis, Long, McIntosh and Wayne; and Statesboro for Bulloch, Candler, Emanuel, Evans, Jenkins, Screven, Tattnall and Toombs. A federal case from any Georgia county is on one of those dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a Georgia felony conviction: the state's $15 Felon Search answers it without consent.

Whether a person has any Georgia record: the sheriff's consent-based check answers it, for a fee the law caps at $20, with the person's signature.

Whether a person was charged in a county: the clerk of superior court's index answers it for felonies and the state court's for misdemeanors.

Whether a person is in custody now: the county jail roster answers it, and the Department of Corrections answers it for state prison.

Whether an old case can still be found: a restricted case is off the state report, a sealed file is closed at the clerk, a judgment goes dormant at seven years, and a copy that predates the restriction is reached through the federal rule.