Nevada Criminal Records

Nevada keeps its criminal records in the same four places every state does, and they are not the same record. The Department of Public Safety holds the fingerprint-based state history and sells a name check of it to anyone who asks. The district courts and justice courts hold the case files, county by county, and most of the large ones can be searched online by name. The sheriffs and city jails hold the booking records and post who is in custody today. And the private databases hold whatever they copied from the court indexes and the jail rosters, which is the record most background checks actually show. This page gives the Nevada rule and the Nevada search for each of them, with government sources only.

Nevada is one of the open states. The Department of Public Safety's Records, Communications and Compliance Division runs the Nevada Criminal History Repository, and its fee page lists a "Civil Name Check Fee" of $20, in effect since January 1, 2019, alongside the $25 Brady firearm background check. The name check is what the name says: a search of the state repository by name and date of birth, without fingerprints, so it carries the same risk of a wrong match as any name search, and the repository itself says its fees "are used to fund the Records Bureau," set "in accordance with statute."

Your own record is a different product. The Division's request page directs "an individual seeking a copy of your own Nevada criminal history" to submit form DPS-006 with a fingerprint card, and the form states that the fingerprints "will be used to verify identity," with a $27 fee. Requests from outside Nevada go on the manual request form. The fingerprint copy is the only version of a Nevada record that is tied to a person rather than to a name, and it is the one to get before disputing anything a background check shows.

A Nevada criminal case lives in the court that heard it. Felonies are district court cases, and most of them start in a justice court with the preliminary hearing, so a felony often has two case numbers in two courts. Misdemeanors are justice court cases outside city limits and municipal court cases inside them. The court records page on this site explains the structure; this section is about finding the criminal file.

Clark County, which is Las Vegas and most of the state's population, files felonies in the Eighth Judicial District Court. The court's portal "is available to provide the status of cases and case filings in the 8th Judicial District Court," and warns that "sealed cases and certain information that is exempt from disclosure will NOT appear on the Portal." Its case and calendar inquiry page offers a "Civil, Criminal, Family, and Probate Case Search" by name, and the clerk's records page notes that the clerk "maintains court records from September 1909 through the present date," with older files requested by form and copies certified for $5 or exemplified for $9 when you supply the copy. Las Vegas misdemeanors are in the Las Vegas Justice Court's own search, and the city's municipal court portal covers city ordinance and traffic cases; Henderson, North Las Vegas and the other townships each run their own justice court search, and the justice courts charge for clerk searches by the year, one dollar per year searched per name at North Las Vegas.

Washoe County, which is Reno, files in the Second Judicial District Court, whose case and calendar inquiry lets anyone "search court cases and view available case information." The other nine judicial districts, covering the fifteen rural counties, are listed in the judiciary's district court directory and justice court directory, and several of them search only at the counter.

Every one of these is a name search. A Nevada court index does not confirm that the person in the file is the person you are asking about, and a common name in Clark County returns other people's cases. How a professional pins a record to the right person is explained on the criminal records page, and it applies here exactly.

Nevada seals rather than expunges. Under NRS 179.245 a person convicted of a crime may petition the court that convicted them to seal the record after a waiting period that runs from completion of the sentence: ten years for a category A felony, five years for a category B, C or D felony, two years for a category E felony or a gross misdemeanor, and one year for a misdemeanor, with longer periods for some offenses and no sealing at all for convictions that require sex offender registration. The statute now carries a presumption: "unless an objecting party presents evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption set forth in NRS 179.2445, the court shall apply the presumption and seal the records." Where the charge was dismissed, the prosecutor declined or the person was acquitted, NRS 179.255 allows the petition at any time, with no waiting period.

A sealed Nevada case leaves the court's index and the state repository marks it. It does not leave a database that copied the index before the order, and the federal rule on "complete and up to date" public record information, explained on the criminal records page, is the tool that forces those copies to catch up.

Nevada's Public Records Act, NRS chapter 239, opens with the legislature's declaration that "the purpose of this chapter is to foster democratic principles by providing members of the public with prompt access to inspect, copy or receive a copy of public books and records," and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department provides access to its records under it. Who is in custody today is posted by the jails: the Clark County Detention Center inmate search, the City of Las Vegas detention center search, and the Washoe County Sheriff's roster for Reno. A person already sentenced to state prison is found in the Nevada Department of Corrections inmate search, which itself says that for a recent arrest "you will need to contact the county or city in which they were arrested."

Those rosters are what the arrest record databases scrape, and they show today's custody, not last year's. An arrest that never became a charge exists only in the agency's report and the jail's booking record, which is why the arrest records page treats an arrest and a criminal record as two different things.

Nevada is a single federal judicial district, the District of Nevada, under 28 U.S.C. 108, and court is held at Carson City, Elko, Las Vegas, Reno, Ely and Lovelock. A federal criminal case from any Nevada county is on that court's docket and on PACER, which covers every federal district in the country and is explained, with its prices and its gaps, on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a Nevada conviction: the $20 civil name check at the Department of Public Safety answers it from the fingerprint-based repository, by name, and the fingerprint copy answers it for certain when it is your own record.

Whether a person was charged in Clark or Washoe County: the district court portal and the justice court search answer it, free, by name, with the disposition on the docket.

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

Whether an old case can still be found: a sealed case is gone from the court and the repository, and a Nevada judgment older than six years without a renewal on file has expired, as the court records page explains.