A federal criminal case search starts with confirming the case is actually federal, then working from free tools toward the paid ones. The main system is PACER, which charges $0.10 per page and caps any single document at $3.00, but a quarterly waiver means most people researching one case pay nothing.{1Federal Court Records. PACER Pricing – How Fees Work Free databases can hand you the case number before you ever log in, and the courthouse itself offers public terminals at no charge.
Make Sure the Case Is Federal
Federal courts only handle crimes defined by federal law or committed on federal property. State-level offenses like assault, burglary, or DUI live in county or state court systems, and searching PACER for one of those cases will turn up nothing.
Prosecutions that typically end up in federal court include drug trafficking and firearms offenses tied to interstate commerce, mail and wire fraud, tax evasion, immigration violations, counterfeiting, federal civil rights charges, and any crime committed on federal property such as a military base or national park. Drug crimes and fraud can go either way, so if you’re not sure, plan to check state records too.
Federal criminal cases are filed at the trial level in the U.S. District Courts, of which there are 94 across the country.{2United States Courts. About U.S. District Courts A drug prosecution in Miami sits in the Southern District of Florida, not just “Florida.” If you don’t know the district, the PACER Case Locator will search all of them at once.
One boundary worth knowing: court-martial records from the military justice system aren’t in PACER. Each branch runs its own public records portal through its Judge Advocate General office. If the person served and was tried by the military, start there instead.
Start With Free Tools
Before spending anything on PACER, run the free searches. They often produce the case number and district, which makes the paid search much cheaper and faster.
Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator
If the defendant was sentenced to federal prison, the BOP Inmate Locator at bop.gov is the quickest way to confirm they’re in federal custody. It covers anyone incarcerated federally from 1982 to the present and is searchable by name or BOP register number.{3Federal Bureau of Prisons. Find an Inmate It won’t hand you court filings, but the register number cross-references cleanly with court records. An empty result usually means the person was a state or local inmate, or was in federal custody before 1982.{4Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Locator Information
RECAP Archive and CourtListener
The RECAP Archive is a public library of PACER documents that other users have contributed. When someone downloads a filing with the RECAP browser extension installed, that filing joins a free archive available to everyone.{5Free Law Project. RECAP Suite — Turning PACER Around Since 2009 The archive is searchable at CourtListener.com, which also hosts millions of federal and state court opinions.{6Free Law Project. CourtListener – Non-Profit Free Legal Search Engine Anything high-profile is usually there in full because reporters and defense lawyers have already pulled the key documents. Obscure cases from small districts may not be, but checking costs nothing.
Individual Court Websites
Most district courts publish daily hearing calendars and sometimes written opinions on their own websites. Case names, docket numbers, and upcoming proceedings often appear there. Walking into PACER already knowing the docket number is the single biggest way to keep your bill at zero.
Search PACER
PACER is the authoritative electronic source for federal court records, covering every U.S. District Court, Court of Appeals, and Bankruptcy Court.{7Federal Court Records. Public Access to Court Electronic Records Registration is free through the PACER Service Center and takes a few minutes. Once you’re in, you can search any federal court in the country.
The PACER Case Locator
If you don’t know which district handled the case, the Case Locator searches a nationwide index updated daily. You can search by party name, case number, or date range.{8Federal Court Records. Search by National Index For common names, add a middle initial or a date window to cut down duplicates. Once you find the right case, the locator sends you to the specific court where the full docket lives.
Reading the Docket Sheet
The docket sheet is the chronological log of every filing, order, and hearing in a case. Pull it first, then decide which documents you actually want. You pay per document opened, so scanning the docket before clicking anything is how you keep costs down.
Federal dockets lean heavily on abbreviations. A few that turn up constantly in criminal cases:
- Indt — Indictment
- Arr — Arraignment
- EOP — Entry of plea
- PSR — Presentence report
- IOS — Imposition of sentence
- MO — Minute order
- R&R — Report and recommendation
- SR — Supervised release
- Sindt — Superseding indictment
Disposition codes on the docket tell you how the case ended. Code 4 is a guilty plea; codes 8 and 9 are conviction after court or jury trial; codes 2 and 3 are acquittal; code 1 is dismissal. “RV” next to a supervised release entry means the release was revoked.
For most people looking up a case, the indictment, the plea agreement, the sentencing memorandum, and the judgment are the documents that carry the substance.
Keep Your PACER Bill at Zero
PACER charges $0.10 per page for dockets and documents, capped at $3.00 per document no matter how long it is.{1Federal Court Records. PACER Pricing – How Fees Work The Judicial Conference sets that schedule nationally.{9United States Courts. Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule
Here’s the part that matters: if your charges stay at $30 or less in a calendar quarter, the entire amount is waived.{1Federal Court Records. PACER Pricing – How Fees Work Thirty dollars covers ten full-length documents at the $3 cap. For anyone researching one case, pulling every important filing without paying is realistic.
Beyond the quarterly waiver, courts can grant full fee exemptions on a case-by-case basis to pro se litigants, indigent individuals, and Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys. Requests go directly to the specific court, and procedures vary.{10Federal Court Records. Options to Access Records if you Cannot Afford PACER Fees Academic researchers on scholarly projects can apply through the PACER Service Center for a multi-court exemption.{11Federal Court Records. Fee Exemption Request for Researchers
Go to the Courthouse
Every federal courthouse has a Clerk’s Office, and most maintain free public terminals where you can browse electronic records without a PACER bill. You only pay if you need paper: $0.50 per page for copies and $12 for certification of a document.{12United States Courts. District Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule
A certified copy carries an official court seal and is what you’ll need for immigration proceedings, professional licensing, or anywhere an authenticated record is required. For personal research or a background check, an uncertified copy is fine.
Older Cases and Archived Records
Cases filed before 1999 often exist only in paper and may not appear in PACER at all.{13United States Courts. Find a Case – PACER Start with the Clerk’s Office at the court where the case was filed. If the file has been shipped to archival storage, the clerk can tell you where.
Records old enough for permanent preservation get transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration. You order them with NATF Form 92, the criminal case order form.{14National Archives. Criminal Cases – Order Form NATF Form 92 You’ll need the case number, transfer number, and box number, all of which come from the originating court’s Clerk’s Office.
NARA’s copy pricing:
- Docket sheet only: $35 uncertified, $50 certified
- Pre-selected documents: $35 uncertified, $50 certified
- Entire case file (up to 150 pages): $90 uncertified, $105 certified, with $22 per 15 minutes of labor added for anything longer
Overnight shipping is $30. Payment is by check or money order made out to the National Archives Trust Fund. Processing usually runs one to three business days after payment clears.
What You Won’t Find
Not every federal criminal case is visible to the public. Courts routinely seal records to protect ongoing investigations, cooperating witnesses, and juvenile defendants. The three most common reasons for sealing a criminal case are keeping an indictment secret until the defendant is arrested, protecting a juvenile’s identity, and preserving the confidentiality of a cooperating defendant’s prosecution.{15Federal Judicial Center. Sealed Cases in Federal Courts Warrant applications, grand jury materials, and cases with minor victims of sex crimes are also often sealed.
A fully sealed case won’t appear in PACER at all. There’s no public docket entry saying it exists. If a case was public and later sealed, someone tracking it might be able to challenge the sealing, but a case sealed from the start is essentially invisible through normal search.
Even in public cases, personal information is redacted before filing. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 49.1 requires filings to include only the last four digits of Social Security and financial account numbers, the year of birth rather than the full date, a minor’s initials instead of their name, and just the city and state of a home address.{16Legal Information Institute (LII). Rule 49.1 Privacy Protection For Filings Made with the Court If certain identifying details are missing from the documents you pull, that rule is usually why.