A criminal case disposition is the final outcome a court records when a criminal case closes, and it tells anyone reviewing your record exactly how the case ended: conviction, acquittal, dismissal, diversion, or something else. That single code follows you through employment background checks, housing applications, firearms purchases, and any future court proceeding. The type of disposition on your record, far more than the underlying charge, decides what stays open to you afterward.
What a Disposition Actually Is
A disposition marks the point when a court no longer has active authority over a set of charges. It can come after a full trial, a plea agreement, a prosecutor’s decision to drop the case, or successful completion of a diversion program. Whatever the route, the court enters a final order moving the case from active to closed.
That order gets coded into the court’s case management system, forwarded to a state criminal records repository, and eventually shared with the FBI’s national databases. From that moment on, the disposition is the permanent, official answer to the question of what happened with your case.
Conviction Dispositions
A conviction means the court formally found or accepted that you committed the offense. There are several ways to get there, and on paper they carry roughly the same weight.
Guilty Plea
The most common path to a conviction is a negotiated guilty plea. You admit to the conduct in open court and the judge enters a conviction. Before accepting the plea, the judge has to confirm on the record that you understand the charges, the maximum penalties, and the constitutional rights you are giving up, and that no one coerced you into pleading.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 11 – Pleas
No Contest (Nolo Contendere)
A no contest plea produces a conviction on your criminal record just like a guilty plea, with one meaningful difference: you never actually admit guilt. You accept the punishment without conceding you did what the prosecution alleges. The practical reason people take this route is civil exposure. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, a nolo contendere plea generally cannot be used against you as an admission in a later civil lawsuit arising from the same conduct.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 410 – Pleas, Plea Discussions, and Related Statements Someone facing both criminal charges and a possible personal injury suit might plead no contest to avoid handing the civil plaintiff a ready-made admission.
Alford Plea
An Alford plea is the rarest option. You plead guilty while maintaining that you are innocent. The Supreme Court approved the practice in 1970, holding that a defendant may knowingly accept a guilty plea and its punishment when the evidence of guilt is strong, even while protesting innocence.3Legal Information Institute. North Carolina v. Alford The usual scenario is a defendant who thinks going to trial risks a much harsher sentence and decides the plea deal is the safer bet. On your record, an Alford plea looks identical to a standard guilty plea and carries the same consequences. Not every jurisdiction allows it, and where it is available, both the judge and prosecutor must agree to accept it.
Trial Conviction
When a case goes to trial and the jury or judge returns a guilty verdict, the court enters a judgment of conviction. You can appeal, but unless an appellate court reverses the outcome, the conviction stands as the permanent disposition.
Non-Conviction Dispositions
Plenty of cases end without a conviction, and the specific type of non-conviction disposition matters.
Acquittal
An acquittal means the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It can come from a jury verdict of not guilty, a judge’s finding in a bench trial, or a judge granting a defense motion for judgment of acquittal when the evidence is too weak to sustain a conviction.4Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 29 – Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal Under the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy protection, an acquittal is permanent and absolute; the prosecution cannot retry you for the same offense even if the acquittal rested on a clear legal error.5Constitution Annotated. Amdt5.3.6.1 Overview of Re-Prosecution After Acquittal
Dismissal
A dismissal ends the case without a verdict, usually because of procedural problems, insufficient evidence, or constitutional violations the prosecution cannot fix. The critical distinction is between dismissal “with prejudice” and “without prejudice.” With prejudice permanently bars the prosecution from refiling. Without prejudice leaves the door open, provided the statute of limitations has not expired. Many dismissed cases still show on background checks unless you take separate steps to have the record sealed or expunged.
Nolle Prosequi
When a prosecutor files a nolle prosequi, they are formally abandoning the charges. This is a prosecutorial decision, not a court ruling. A key witness may have become unavailable, new evidence may have undermined the case, or the prosecutor may have decided that pursuing the charges no longer serves the interests of justice. Unlike a dismissal with prejudice, a nolle prosequi generally does not prevent the prosecutor from refiling the same charges later, though speedy trial rules and statutes of limitations impose practical time limits.
Mistrials and Hung Juries
A mistrial is not a final disposition. When a judge declares a mistrial, whether because of juror misconduct, a procedural error that cannot be cured, or a jury that cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the case resets. Double jeopardy does not bar retrial because no verdict was ever reached. Prosecutors then decide whether the evidence justifies another trial. Some cases get retried; others are quietly dropped after a hung jury when the prosecutor concludes a conviction is unlikely. Until the prosecutor either recharges or formally walks away with a nolle prosequi or dismissal, the case sits in limbo without a final disposition.
Diversionary Dispositions
Diversion programs sit between conviction and outright dismissal. They give defendants, usually first-time or low-level offenders, a path to resolution that avoids a permanent conviction.
Pretrial Diversion
In pretrial diversion, the prosecutor pauses the case while you complete conditions like community service, treatment, or restitution. If you finish the program, the prosecutor typically files a nolle prosequi or the court dismisses the charges. Whether the underlying arrest record is sealed depends on the jurisdiction. A handful of states do not allow sealing at all after diversion, which means the arrest still appears on background checks even though the case was resolved favorably.
Deferred Adjudication
Deferred adjudication works differently because a plea is involved. You usually plead guilty or no contest, but the judge holds off on formally entering the conviction and places you on court-supervised probation. Complete everything and the judge vacates the plea and dismisses the case. Violate the conditions and the judge can immediately enter the conviction you already pleaded to, which is the real risk. Dismissal after deferred adjudication generally allows sealing, though waiting periods of two to five years apply in some states before the court will issue the order.
How Dispositions Reach Your Record
The recording process starts the moment a judge signs the final order. The court clerk enters a disposition code into the local case management system, translating the legal outcome into a standardized format other agencies can read. That data flows to the state’s central criminal records repository, which acts as the clearinghouse for law enforcement and authorized background check agencies within the state.
State repositories then share disposition data with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which maintains the national criminal history database.6Federal Bureau of Investigation. Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) The system is supposed to update quickly, but in practice arrests get reported immediately while dispositions sometimes lag by weeks or months. That gap creates a window where a record shows an arrest with no outcome, which looks worse than almost any actual disposition.
How Your Disposition Affects Employment, Housing, and Firearms
The type of disposition determines what doors stay open.
Employment
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumer reporting agencies cannot include arrest records more than seven years old, measured from the date of the arrest or charge.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports A non-conviction disposition like a dismissal or acquittal does not restart that seven-year clock; the reporting period runs from the original arrest date.8Federal Register. Fair Credit Reporting; Background Screening Convictions can be reported indefinitely under federal law, though a growing number of states impose their own time limits.
The EEOC has said that blanket policies excluding every applicant with any criminal record violate Title VII because of their disproportionate impact on certain racial and ethnic groups. Employers must consider the nature of the offense, how much time has passed, and the nature of the job, and must offer an individualized assessment.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions According to the EEOC, an arrest alone does not establish that criminal conduct occurred, and denying a job based only on an arrest is not job-related.
Housing
Public housing agencies and Section 8 administrators screen using criminal conviction records. Federal regulations require them to give you written notice of any proposed denial based on your record, provide a copy of the information they relied on, and give you an opportunity to dispute its accuracy and relevance before making a final decision.10eCFR. 24 CFR Part 5 Subpart J – Access to Criminal Records and Information Private landlords are not bound by those procedural rules, though many states and cities have adopted fair-chance housing laws that limit how private landlords use criminal records.
Firearms
Federal law prohibits firearm possession by anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, which effectively covers all felonies and some serious misdemeanors. A separate prohibition applies to anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, regardless of the maximum sentence.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts Non-conviction dispositions do not trigger these prohibitions. If your record incorrectly shows a conviction because of a reporting error, you can still be wrongly denied at the point of sale and will need to challenge the denial through the FBI’s NICS process.
Sealing, Expungement, and Fixing Errors
Expungement and sealing are the two main tools for limiting public access to a disposition, and they work differently. Expungement typically results in destruction of the record or its removal from the public database. Sealing keeps the record intact but restricts who can view it, usually limiting access to law enforcement, certain licensing agencies, and courts handling future criminal cases.
There is no general federal authority to expunge or seal federal convictions. Almost all expungement and sealing happens at the state level, and the rules vary. Every state imposes some combination of eligibility restrictions: certain offense types are excluded (violent felonies and sex offenses are almost never eligible), a conviction-free waiting period must pass after you complete your sentence (ranging from one year to twenty years depending on the state and severity of the offense), and you typically must petition the court and demonstrate rehabilitation.
Even after a record is expunged or sealed, it may linger on third-party background check databases. Commercial background check companies buy criminal record data in bulk, and that data may not reflect an expungement that happened after the snapshot was taken. Under the FCRA, these companies must correct inaccurate information within 30 days of being notified, but the burden of catching errors falls almost entirely on you. If you know which company an employer or landlord uses, providing them a copy of your expungement order before the report runs saves time.
Errors in disposition records are more common than the system’s designers intended. A dismissed case might still show as pending. A conviction that was overturned on appeal might not update in a state repository for months. A clerical typo might list the wrong offense or disposition code entirely. Federal courts can correct clerical mistakes in a judgment or order at any time, either on their own or after notice to the parties, and state courts have equivalent rules.12Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 36 – Clerical Error You will typically need to file a motion identifying the specific error and providing documentation of what the record should say.
For errors in the FBI’s national database, request your own Identity History Summary. The request costs $18 and requires a current set of fingerprints, which you can submit electronically through a participating U.S. Post Office or by mail using a fingerprint card taken by local law enforcement.13Federal Bureau of Investigation. Identity History Summary Checks Frequently Asked Questions If you find inaccurate information, the FBI will direct you to the agency that submitted the record so you can contest it at the source. When an error leads to a wrongful firearm denial through NICS, you can submit a formal challenge electronically or by mail, and the FBI must respond within 60 calendar days.14Federal Bureau of Investigation. Requesting Reason for and/or Challenging a NICS-Related Denial
Getting a Copy of a Disposition Record
Criminal case records are generally presumed open to the public. You do not need to be the defendant to request one, and most courts do not require a signed waiver from the person whose record you are pulling. The main exceptions are records that have been sealed or expunged and matters like grand jury investigations or certain competency proceedings.
To locate the right record, start with the full legal name of the person and their date of birth. A case or docket number makes the search faster and avoids confusion with common names. You also need to identify the specific court that heard the case, since records are maintained by that court rather than through any central search engine.
Most courts offer request forms on their website or at the clerk’s window. You will specify whether you need a certified copy, which carries an official seal and signature for legal or administrative use, or a standard copy for informational purposes. Fees for certified copies vary, typically from a few dollars to around $40. Many courts now accept electronic submissions and online payment. Processing times range from a few days in courts with modern digital systems to several weeks where paper archives are still in use.
If you need your complete federal criminal history rather than a single case disposition, the FBI’s Identity History Summary Check is the route. Unlike court records, the FBI requires fingerprints for every request and does not perform name-based searches for individuals.13Federal Bureau of Investigation. Identity History Summary Checks Frequently Asked Questions Every request needs a fresh fingerprint card; cards from earlier submissions cannot be reused. The $18 fee applies whether you submit electronically or by mail.