Montana Criminal Records

Montana's constitution gives every person a right to examine the documents of the state, and its Criminal Justice Information Act sorts the police file into two piles: public criminal justice information, which includes the initial arrest record, the bail record and the daily jail roster, and confidential criminal justice information, which is everything else. The Department of Justice sells the public criminal history online for $20 a search, the courts are moving all 56 counties onto two free public portals, and the state expunges misdemeanors once in a lifetime and felonies not at all. This page gives the Montana rule and the Montana search for each record, with government sources only.

The Department of Justice's background check page says how: "You may pay the $20.00 fee for each record search by credit card or eCheck. Go to Criminal History Online Public Record Search and click on the Registered Users 'Start Service' button," and the search itself describes what it is: "Welcome to the Montana Department of Justice service that allows users to search the state's public criminal history record database. This official State of Montana service provides electronic access to criminal history record information in accordance with Montana Code Annotated 44-5-301." Anyone may run it, by name and date of birth, with aliases. What comes back is the public portion of the repository under the Criminal Justice Information Act: convictions, deferred sentences still in force and the arrests the act treats as public, with the dismissed and confidential records left out. It is a name search, and the criminal records page explains why a name match is a guess; the fingerprint version is for the person's own review and the employers and licensing boards the statutes name.

Felonies are tried in the district courts, one for each of the 22 judicial districts covering the 56 counties, and misdemeanors in the courts of limited jurisdiction, the justice courts, city courts and municipal courts. The Judicial Branch's public access portals page explains the move: "As Montana courts transition to a new centralized case management system, certain public records will become available through the Montana District Court Public Access Portal and the Montana Courts of Limited Jurisdiction Public Access Portal," and the branch's home page points to the same two portals for public records and lets anyone "locate contact information, staff and operating hours for any Montana court by the judicial district or county it resides in." The portals are free and search by name or case number; a court not yet on the centralized system is searched through its clerk, and the county pages on this site link each clerk of district court and each justice court. A background check company's "Montana court record" is a copy of a portal or a clerk's index on the date it was pulled, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

Montana's expungement law is Title 46, chapter 18, part 11 of the Montana Code Annotated, and its eligibility section, 46-18-1104, says who may use it: "A person convicted of one or more misdemeanor offenses, whether in one court or multiple courts and whether in one case or multiple cases, and who has not had the person's records expunged under this part previously, may petition a district court" for expungement of all of them at once. The part's table of contents shows the structure: expungement is presumed under 46-18-1107 when five years have passed since the sentence was completed and no charges are pending, is not presumed under 46-18-1108 for the assault, driving under the influence and other offenses that section lists, and is granted once in a lifetime. A felony conviction cannot be expunged in Montana, apart from the marijuana convictions the 2021 legalization act reaches; a felony leaves the public record only by pardon. An expunged misdemeanor is removed from the court's index and the Department's public search, 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.

The Criminal Justice Information Act's definitions, 44-5-103, divide the record. "Confidential criminal justice information" includes criminal investigative information, criminal intelligence information and "any other criminal justice information not clearly defined as public criminal justice information," while public criminal justice information is defined to include, in the words the Attorney General quoted in Opinion 42-119, "initial arrest records; bail records; and daily jail occupancy rosters," so that, as the opinion concludes, records within that definition "should be considered public criminal justice information." So a Montana arrest, the bail set and the day's jail roster are public by statute, and the detective's file is not. Who is in custody is posted by the county sheriffs, the Yellowstone County detention center search for Billings among them, and by the Department of Corrections through its Correctional Offender Network search for state prisoners and people on supervision. The arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the roster.

A Montana judgment docketed by the clerk of the district court is a lien on the debtor's real property in that county, and 25-9-301, "docketing of judgment, lien, expiration," provides that "immediately after the entry of the judgment in the judgment book, the clerk shall make entries of the judgment under appropriate heads in the docket kept by the clerk" and that the lien "continues for 10 years unless the judgment is previously satisfied." The judgment itself may be enforced for ten years under 27-2-201, and the Supreme Court of Montana has held that an action to renew it "may be brought as a matter of right within ten years," which gives the creditor a new ten. A justice court judgment becomes a lien only when filed in the district court. The court records page covers where the judgment dockets are searched.

Montana is a single federal judicial district under 28 U.S.C. 106, which reads "Montana, exclusive of Yellowstone National Park, constitutes one judicial district," the park's Montana strip belonging to the District of Wyoming under 28 U.S.C. 131. Court is held at Billings, Butte, Glasgow, Great Falls, Havre, Helena, Kalispell, Lewistown, Livingston, Miles City and Missoula. A federal criminal case from any of Montana's 56 counties is on that one docket and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a Montana record: the Department's $20 online search answers it, by name and date of birth, from the public criminal history.

Whether a person was charged in a county: the district court portal answers it for felonies and the limited jurisdiction portal for misdemeanors, for the courts on the centralized system, and the clerk for the rest.

Whether a person was arrested: the initial arrest record, the bail record and the jail roster are public criminal justice information under 44-5-103.

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

Whether an old case can still be found: an expunged misdemeanor is off the court and the Department's search, a felony never leaves, a judgment lien lapses at ten years unless renewed, and a copy that predates the expungement is reached through the federal rule.