West Virginia Criminal Records

West Virginia keeps its state repository for the person, the employer and the agency, and hands everyone else the courts, which now search the circuit court records of all fifty-five counties in one place. Two things about the state are unusual. It has no county jails: the state runs ten regional jails, and its Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation posts every day's bookings statewide on one page, with a warning that the information "can change quickly." And its expungement law gives a person one chance at a conviction, after one year for a misdemeanor and five for a nonviolent felony, with a $100 fee to the State Police for carrying it out. This page gives the West Virginia rule and the West Virginia search for each record, with government sources only.

The West Virginia State Police's Criminal Records Section runs the state central repository, and it does not sell a name search to the public. Employers and volunteer organizations get the record under the Bureau's user agreement, which binds the user to "use criminal history record information acquired hereunder only to screen User's West Virginia current and/or prospective employees and/or volunteers," with the subject's fingerprints; licensing boards get it through the programs their statutes authorize; and a person gets a personal copy by fingerprint, and may dispute it on the challenge of criminal history record form, WVSP 136A, mailed with "a cashier's check and/or money order in the amount of $20.00 (processing fee) made payable to: The Superintendent, West Virginia State Police." So a West Virginia state record produced for a stranger by name did not come from the Bureau; it came from a copy of the court index, and the criminal records page explains what such a copy misses and why a name match is not a person.

Felonies are tried in the circuit courts, one for each of the state's judicial circuits, with the circuit clerk in each of the 55 counties keeping the file, and misdemeanors in the magistrate courts in each county. The Judiciary's court record access page now lets the public "search circuit court records from all fifty-five counties statewide," by name or case number, with the docket entries, and its county court information search reaches the magistrate courts' case and payment information county by county. The clerk certifies the file, and the county pages on this site link each circuit clerk and magistrate court. A background check company's "West Virginia court record" is a copy of one of those indexes on the date it was pulled, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

Charges that did not end in conviction are expunged under West Virginia Code 61-11-25, on petition to the circuit court after an acquittal or a dismissal, and the section polices the order: "every agency with records relating to the arrest, charge, or other matters arising out of the arrest or charge, that is ordered to expunge records, shall certify to the court within 60 days of the entry of the expungement order" that it has done so. Convictions are expunged under 61-11-26: a misdemeanor conviction one year after the sentence and any supervision are complete, more than one misdemeanor after two years, and an eligible nonviolent felony after five, with the violent, sexual and driving offenses the section lists excluded, and with one qualification the section spells out, that "a conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs shall not preclude expungement of an unrelated and otherwise expungable felony if the conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs is at least five years old at the time the petition for expungement is filed." Relief under the section is granted once in a lifetime, the petition carries the $100 fee "to the records division of the West Virginia State Police for the cost of processing the order of expungement" that subsection (n) sets, waived for the accelerated program in 61-11-26a, and an expunged record is sealed at the court, the arresting agency and the Bureau. A copy sold before the order keeps the case, and the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page, is what forces the copy to catch up.

West Virginia's Freedom of Information Act, Code 29B-1-1 and following, opens every public record to every person and lists its exemptions in 29B-1-4, among them "records of law-enforcement agencies that deal with the detection and investigation of crime and the internal records and notations of such law-enforcement agencies which are maintained for internal use in matters relating to law enforcement." The state's courts have read that exemption as protecting the investigative file and the agency's internal notes, not the incident report that records an arrest, so the arrest, the charge and the booking are public when they happen. Where the person is held is the state's business, not the county's: West Virginia closed its county jails in favor of regional jails run by the state, and the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation's offender search has three parts, "Daily Incarcerations," "Offender Search (Jails)" and "Offender Search (Prisons)." The daily incarcerations page is the day's bookings for the whole state, with the Division's own caution: "The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation updates this information regularly. This information can change quickly. Therefore, the information may not reflect the true current location, release date, status, or other information regarding an offender." It is the clearest statewide example of the one-day window the arrest records page describes: a copy made from that page is one day's list, and the next day's replaces it.

Under West Virginia Code 38-3-6, "every judgment for money rendered in this state, other than by confession in vacation, shall be a lien on all the real estate of or to which the defendant in such judgment is or becomes possessed or entitled, at or after the date of such judgment," and 38-3-7 adds that the lien binds a purchaser without notice only if the judgment is docketed on the county's judgment lien docket, and not "after ten years from its date as against such a purchaser who purchases after such ten years, unless within such ten years an execution shall have issued on such judgment" and been docketed. 38-3-18 sets the clock for the judgment itself: "On a judgment, execution may be issued within ten years after the date thereof," and the section allows a longer period where an execution has issued and been returned within the ten. The court records page covers where the judgment lien dockets are searched.

West Virginia is divided into two federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 129. The Northern District covers the counties of Barbour, Berkeley, Braxton, Brooke, Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Grant, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jefferson, Lewis, Marion, Marshall, Mineral, Monongalia, Morgan, Ohio, Pendleton, Pleasants, Pocahontas, Preston, Randolph, Ritchie, Taylor, Tucker, Tyler, Upshur, Webster and Wetzel, with court held at Clarksburg, Elkins, Fairmont, Martinsburg and Wheeling. The Southern District covers Boone, Cabell, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, Mason, Mercer, Mingo, Monroe, Nicholas, Putnam, Raleigh, Roane, Summers, Wayne, Wirt, Wood and Wyoming, with court held at Beckley, Bluefield, Charleston, Huntington, Lewisburg and Parkersburg. A federal case from any West Virginia county is on one of those two dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a West Virginia state record: the Bureau answers it for the person, by fingerprint, and for the employers and agencies its agreements and statutes name, and for no one else by name.

Whether a person was charged with a felony: the Judiciary's court record access answers it for all 55 counties' circuit courts.

Whether a person was charged with a misdemeanor: the magistrate court in the county answers it.

Whether a person was arrested: the incident report is open under the FOIA, and the day's bookings for the whole state are on the Division's daily incarcerations page.

Whether a person is in custody now: the Division's jail and prison searches answer it, since the state runs both.

Whether an old case can still be found: an expunged case is sealed at the court, the agency and the Bureau, a judgment's execution runs ten years, and a copy that predates the expungement is reached through the federal rule.