North Dakota Criminal Records

North Dakota puts every district court case in the state on one free search and sells its state criminal history for $15 to anyone who can supply a name and two more identifiers, which the statute requires precisely because, as the Attorney General puts it, a person "has used several names or there are other individuals with the same name." Its sealing law is young, from 2019, and it hides rather than destroys; its judgments run ten years and renew for ten more; and its open records law closes a police investigation only while it is "active," a word the statute defines. This page gives the North Dakota rule and the North Dakota search for each record, with government sources only.

The Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation holds the repository, into which, as the criminal history records page explains, "the criminal history information is submitted by local law enforcement agencies, state's attorneys, the courts, parole and probation, etc." The request page says how the public asks: "Complete and submit the original signed form along with the required fee by mail to the BCI. Payment by check or money order (NO CASH), made payable to 'ND Attorney General,'" and "if you are dropping off a public request at our Bismarck office, please be advised that a fee of $15 is required." The public request form, SFN 50744, carries the identification rule: "State law (NDCC 12-60-16.6) requires the subject's name and at least two additional identifiers, such as DOB, SSN, BCI state ID," and "record request only covers North Dakota criminal history records." The Attorney General's comparison page adds that "by law, only the ND BCI can supply a Criminal History Record Check," which is the state's way of saying that a commercial "background check" is not the state record. What comes back is the public criminal history under 12-60-16.6, the convictions and the charges still pending, with sealed matters left out. The two-identifier rule is the state's own answer to the problem the criminal records page describes: a name alone is not a person.

North Dakota tries felonies and misdemeanors in one trial court, the district court, in eight judicial districts covering the 53 counties, with municipal courts handling city ordinance cases. The court system's public access page says what is online: "This website provides access to North Dakota District Court Case information for Criminal, Traffic, and Civil case types," through the District Court Case Search, by name or case number, and its questions page prices it: "NDCRI is the North Dakota Courts Records Inquiry system. Yes. NDCRI is made available to the general public, free of charge." The clerk of district court in each county keeps the file and certifies copies, and the county pages on this site link each courthouse. A background check company's "North Dakota court record" is a copy of this search on the date it was pulled, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

North Dakota seals under Century Code chapter 12-60.1, enacted by the 2019 legislature. The chapter defines "closed" as "subject to examination only by a clerk of court, a judge of the court, the juvenile commission, a criminal justice agency, the defendant, the defendant's counsel, a state's attorney" and the others it names. A person convicted of a misdemeanor may petition the court three years after release from incarceration, parole or probation with no new charges, and a person convicted of an eligible felony after five, with the offenses the chapter excludes and the factors the court weighs. The court system's research guide states the effect: "If criminal records are sealed using the N.D.C.C. Chapter 12-60.1 process, records aren't deleted or destroyed. However, the prosecution and the North Dakota court system aren't allowed to disclose the existence or content of the criminal records." A separate section, 12.1-32-07.2, seals the record of a deferred imposition of sentence when the case is dismissed at the end of probation, which is how most first offenses leave the North Dakota public record. A sealed case is off the District Court Case Search and the Bureau's public copy, 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.

North Dakota's constitution makes the records of every public entity open, and the open records law closes them only where a statute says so. For the police that statute is 44-04-18.7, which the Attorney General's Opinion 2019-O-01 describes as "a specific exception to the open records law" that "allows protections for active criminal intelligence and investigative information," and which the office was still applying in Opinion 2026-O-08 to records withheld "on the basis that the records constituted active criminal investigative" information. The section defines its own limit: investigative information "must be considered 'active' as long as it is related to an ongoing investigation that is continuing with a reasonable good-faith anticipation of securing an arrest or prosecution in the foreseeable future," and it keeps open the time, date, location and nature of a reported crime, the name, sex, age and address of a person arrested, the time and place of the arrest and the charge. So a North Dakota arrest is public when it happens, and the file behind it is closed only while the investigation is active. Who is in custody is posted by the county jails, the Cass County Jail in Fargo among them, linked from the county pages, and by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's resident lookup, which "is for individuals currently incarcerated in a ND DOCR facility" and notes that "an individual sentenced to the ND DOCR, who is incarcerated in an out-of-state facility, will not appear in this lookup." The arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the roster.

A North Dakota judgment docketed with the clerk of district court is a lien on the debtor's real property in that county, except the homestead, under Century Code 28-20-13, and chapter 28-20 lets the creditor renew it once by affidavit before the ten years run, filed where "the judgment was first docketed," after which "the clerk of court shall file a copy of the affidavit for renewal" in each county where the judgment is docketed. Section 28-20-35 cancels a judgment of record after ten years unless renewed, and the 2021 legislature reworked the renewal sections so that "all other remedies for the enforcement of judgments apply" from the date of renewal. The court records page covers where the judgment dockets are searched.

North Dakota is a single federal judicial district, the District of North Dakota, under 28 U.S.C. 114, and court is held at Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot. A federal criminal case from any of North Dakota's 53 counties is on that one docket and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a North Dakota record: the Bureau answers it for $15, by name and two more identifiers, and the Attorney General says no one else can.

Whether a person was charged in a county: the District Court Case Search answers it free, statewide, and the clerk of district court certifies the answer.

Whether a person was arrested: the arrest, the charge and the arrested person's name are open, and the investigation is closed only while it is active.

Whether a person is in custody now: the county jail's roster answers it, and the Department's lookup for state prison, out-of-state placements excepted.

Whether an old case can still be found: a sealed case exists but may not be disclosed by the courts or the prosecutor, a judgment lapses at ten years unless renewed once, and a copy that predates a sealing is reached through the federal rule.