How to Find Out If a Person Has a DUI

Finding DUI case information requires knowing court jurisdictions.

A driving under influence (DUI) arrest will result in court records documenting the prosecution of the case from the arrest through conviction, acquittal or dismissal. Many courts maintain digitized versions of criminal case records, which makes the information increasingly available online, through the court's website or via a commercial database website. However, there are no uniform, nationwide standards that regulate how criminal case records, such as DUI records, are collected and made available to the public. To perform an effective search for a DUI record, you need to understand court jurisdictions and some basic search strategies.

Instructions

1. Gather all the background information on the person you are searching for a DUI record, such as name, date of birth, and current and former addresses. If you do not have any address information, you will need to locate this information. To narrow the court jurisdictions you must search to locate any DUI record. You should perform an address search for the past 10 years. Online commercial sites, such as Merlin Information Services and Experian, can perform this search for a fee.

2. Use the address information found in Step 1 to locate a state agency where DUI records may be made available to the public. Some states make a person's criminal history available through an agency that maintains records of all criminal cases throughout the state. For example, criminal histories are available in Montana through its Department of Justice and in Oklahoma at the State Bureau of Investigations. These searches can be done by the person's name for a fee, online or by mail.

3. Identify the county for each address you located in Step 1, if you cannot find a state agency with criminal histories available. All states organize their criminal courts by county, which is the basic jurisdiction information you need to find a DUI record. A person arrested for DUI will be prosecuted in the county where the arrest occurred. If the address information you located in Step 1 does not include the county, there are websites, such as the National Association of Counties, that have a searchable database of counties by address.

4. Use the county information found for each address to locate the county court where the DUI case may have been prosecuted. Start your search for DUI records by locating the county court's website. Nearly every county court will have a website and some will also have a searchable database of criminal case information, although most probably will not. County courts that provide this information, such as the Ventura County Superior Court in California, usually require more identifying information than the person's name (e.g. date of birth), but the search will be free.

5. Go to the county court and search the criminal case records in person, if they are not available online. If this is impractical, you can find search companies located near the court that will perform the search for a fee.

Tips & Warnings

• Some state laws provide for expunging or sealing court records from public view, including DUI cases, if the convicted person satisfies the court's probationary requirements. If the record is expunged or sealed, you will not be able to find it through a state agency or county court. However, if the information was sold to a commercial database company before expungement or sealing of the record, your may able to locate the information from this source.

References

• Montana Department of Justice: Criminal Records Check
• Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation: Criminal History Information
• National Association of Counties: Searches
• National Center for State Courts: Court Statistics Process
• Ventura County Superior Court (California): Criminal Case Information

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish