Louisiana Criminal Records

Louisiana keeps its criminal records the way it keeps everything else, by parish. There is no statewide court search: each of the 64 parishes has an elected clerk of court who holds the district court's criminal files, and Orleans keeps a separate clerk for its Criminal District Court. The State Police repository is not open to the public, so a Louisiana rap sheet is reached by the person it describes or by the agencies a statute names, and the arrest is public through a public records law that lists, item by item, what an initial police report must show. This page gives the Louisiana rule and the Louisiana search for each record, with government sources only.

Felonies and most misdemeanors are tried in the district courts, one for each of the state's judicial districts, and their records are kept by the clerk of court of the parish where the case was filed. City and parish courts try the lesser misdemeanors and traffic in the places that have them, with their own clerks. The larger clerks search online: the East Baton Rouge Parish clerk offers online access "on a subscription basis for a nominal fee" and takes public records requests by letter; the West Baton Rouge Parish clerk explains that "bills of information, minute entries, and other documents comprise a criminal record" and that "the criminal department also maintains records of traffic violations processed through the 18th Judicial District Court"; and the Lafayette Parish clerk puts "civil and criminal case info" on its own portal. Many of the smaller clerks share multi-parish subscription portals rather than running their own, and the Lafourche Parish clerk points to the clerks' remote access authority's "one stop shop for doing business with Louisiana Clerks," with "links for all parishes including Statewide Portal, Parish Search, eRecording and eFiling"; the rest search only at the counter. The county pages on this site link each parish clerk. A background check company's "Louisiana criminal record" is a copy of whichever of these indexes it bought, on the date it bought it, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses and why a name in a docket is not yet a person.

Louisiana's criminal history is held by the State Police's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information, and its release is governed by statute rather than by request. The Bureau states that "pursuant to Louisiana Revised Statute 15:588, individuals can obtain a certified copy of their criminal history information record," and it runs the Internet Background Check portal for the employers, licensing boards and agencies that R.S. 15:587 and the statutes it references authorize to receive a name-based or fingerprint check, with the portal's own questions page setting out who may register. The state fee is $26 a search, as the licensing boards that route applicants through the Bureau spell out, with the FBI's fee on top for a national check, and the Bureau notes that "effective January 1, 2024, a $1.25 fee reduction will be applied to all Federal background check requests, per the FBI. State fees will remain the same." The public, meaning a landlord or a neighbor with no statute behind them, does not search the Bureau at all. A Louisiana state record offered to anyone by name for a price did not come from the State Police.

Louisiana expunges under Title XXXIV of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Article 976 covers arrests that did not end in conviction, once the time for prosecuting has run or the charge was dismissed or ended in acquittal; Article 977 covers misdemeanor convictions, after five years from the completion of the sentence with no convictions in that time and no charges pending; and Article 978 covers felony convictions, after ten years on the same terms, with the crimes of violence, sex offenses and drug distribution offenses the article lists excluded. Article 983 sets the cost, a nonrefundable processing fee divided among the Bureau, the sheriff, the district attorney and the clerk, capped at $550, and adds that "all applicable time delays pertaining to expungement provided by Articles 977 and 978 shall be waived when the certification is presented to the clerk of court with the application for expungement," the certification being the one the article describes. The legislature has also directed the Bureau, in a newer section, to "identify within its criminal repository database all records with a Case Management Information System (CMIS) number and final dispositions for individuals eligible for an expungement pursuant to the provisions of Articles 976, 977, and 978," the first step of an automatic process that reaches only the records the repository can match to a court disposition. An expunged Louisiana record is removed from public access at the clerk, the sheriff and the Bureau, though it stays available to the agencies the code names, and a copy sold before the order is reached through the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page.

Louisiana's Public Records Law closes the investigative file in R.S. 44:3 and, in the same section, opens the arrest. The statute exempts records "pertaining to pending criminal litigation" and the investigation behind them, then provides that this does not apply to "the initial report of the officer or officers investigating a complaint, but not to apply to any followup or subsequent report or investigation," nor to "records of the booking of a person as provided in Code of Criminal Procedure Article 228." It then says what the initial report must contain: "a narrative description of the alleged offense," "the name and identification of each and every person who is a suspect charged with or arrested for the alleged offense, unless prohibited or protected" by another law, the time, date and location, the property involved, the vehicles involved, and the names of the investigating officers. So a Louisiana arrest is public from the first report and the booking, and the detective's file is not. Who is in custody is posted by the parish sheriffs, with the Orleans Parish Sheriff's detainee search for the Orleans Justice Center and the Jefferson and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriffs' inmate lists linked from the county pages, and the Department of Public Safety and Corrections points the public to Louisiana VINE, where "family and friends of people assigned to the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections can locate the person." Louisiana's state prisoners are often housed in parish jails under contract, so the parish roster and the state locator can both be right about the same person. The arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the roster.

A Louisiana money judgment is governed by Civil Code Article 3501: it "is prescribed by the lapse of ten years from its signing if no appeal has been taken," or ten years from the time it becomes final after appeal, and "may be revived at any time before it prescribes by an interested party" in the court that rendered it. Recorded in the parish mortgage records, the judgment is a judicial mortgage on the debtor's immovable property in that parish, which must be reinscribed to outlive its first term, and the code directs the recorder to cancel it "upon any person's written request to which is attached a certificate from the clerk of the court rendering the judgment that no suit or motion was filed for its revival within the time required by Article 3501." The court records page covers where the civil dockets and the mortgage records are searched.

Louisiana is divided into three federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 98. The Eastern District covers the parishes of Assumption, Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans, Plaquemines, Saint Bernard, Saint Charles, Saint James, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne and Washington, with court held at New Orleans and Houma. The Middle District covers Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, Saint Helena, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana, with court held at Baton Rouge. The Western District covers Acadia, Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Calcasieu, Caldwell, Cameron, Catahoula, Claiborne, Concordia, Jefferson Davis, De Soto, East Carroll, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Iberia, Jackson, Lafayette, La Salle, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, Saint Landry, Saint Martin, Saint Mary, Tensas, Union, Vermilion, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll and Winn, with court held at Alexandria, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, Opelousas and Shreveport. A federal case from any Louisiana parish 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 a parish: the clerk of court of that parish answers it, online where the clerk has a portal and at the counter where not, and Orleans has a separate criminal clerk.

Whether a person has a Louisiana state record: the Bureau answers it for the person, and for the agencies R.S. 15:587 names, at $26, and for no one else.

Whether a person was arrested: the initial report and the booking are public under R.S. 44:3, with the items the statute lists.

Whether a person is in custody now: the parish sheriff's roster answers it, and Louisiana VINE answers it for the Department's prisoners wherever they are housed.

Whether an old case can still be found: an expunged case is off the clerk, the sheriff and the Bureau, a judgment prescribes at ten years unless revived, and a copy that predates the expungement is reached through the federal rule.