Federal courts
Finding Federal Criminal Records
Federal criminal cases are a small fraction of all prosecutions, but they’re unusually well documented and almost entirely public.
Understand the split first. Most crime is prosecuted at state level. Federal court handles offences against federal law — fraud that crosses state lines, drugs at scale, firearms offences, tax, immigration, and crimes on federal land.
A clean federal search says nothing about state convictions. See criminal records: how the system works.
The three sources
| Source | Gives you | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| PACER | The case: charges, docket, filings, sentence | 10¢/page, usually free |
| BOP inmate locator | Custody status, release date, register number | Free |
| Written opinions | The court’s reasoning | Free on PACER |
Search the Case Locator nationally
Use the PACER Case Locator, not an individual district. Set case type to criminal and search the party name across all courts.
Federal defendants are prosecuted where the offense occurred, which is frequently not where they live.
Read the docket in order
A federal criminal docket runs a predictable sequence: complaint or indictment, initial appearance, arraignment, detention hearing, motions, plea or trial, presentence investigation, sentencing, judgment.
The judgment is the document you want. It states the counts of conviction, the sentence, supervised release terms, restitution and forfeiture.
Look for restitution and forfeiture
For asset work this is the valuable part. A restitution order is a debt the defendant owes that’s already quantified and already enforceable, and forfeiture filings identify specific property the government seized or claimed.
Those filings name real property, vehicles, accounts and businesses.
Check the Bureau of Prisons locator
Free, searchable by name or register number, and it covers anyone in federal custody now or released since 1982.
It gives age, race, release date and the facility. A projected release date is a date the person will appear somewhere, which is occasionally exactly what you needed.
Understand what a sealed entry means
Federal dockets show sealed entries as existing but unavailable. Plea agreements are often sealed, and so are cooperation-related filings.
A pattern of sealed filings around a plea is informative in itself, though not something to state as a conclusion in a report.
Watch for the case that was dismissed
A dismissed indictment stays on the docket permanently. It’s a public record that charges were brought and then dropped.
Report it accurately. Describing a dismissed charge as a conviction is defamatory and it happens constantly in this industry.
What you cannot get
- The presentence report. The most complete financial and personal profile the federal system produces, and it is not public. Parties only.
- Grand jury material. Secret by rule.
- Juvenile proceedings. Closed.
- Expunged federal records. Rare, but they exist.
- A national criminal database. The FBI’s NCIC is law enforcement only. No commercial service has lawful access to it, whatever they advertise.
Search the middle name and known aliases. Federal captions use full legal names and often list aliases in the indictment. A search on a shortened first name will miss the case entirely.
Go deeper
PACER — An Investigator’s Dream
Federal criminal records, civil filings and bankruptcies end to end, with at least two in-depth case examinations in each area, plus a bonus section on state and county searching. $49.99.
See the course