How to Check If Someone Has a Felony Record in Arizona

You met someone new, or you are about to hand a stranger the keys to your rental, and you want to know whether they carry a felony in Arizona. Or you typed your own name into a search bar and want to see what a landlord sees. Either way, the answer lives in public court records, and those records cost nothing to read.

We read Arizona court records every day, because clearing them is the only work we do. AZ Record Removal is owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law, and we tell you what your record shows before you pay us a dollar.

Where do you look up an Arizona felony conviction for free?

Start with the courts, because an Arizona felony record lookup is a court record search. Three free sources cover almost every case in the state.

• The Arizona Judicial Branch runs a statewide Public Access to Court Information site covering 177 of Arizona’s 184 courts.
• Maricopa County Superior Court and Pima County Superior Court each run their own docket search on their own websites.
• The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry posts an inmate search for anyone who served prison time.

Felonies are filed in superior court, so the superior court search for the county where the case happened is the one that matters most. A misdemeanor lands in a justice court or a city court, and those courts feed the statewide site. If you do not know the county, run the name through the statewide site first, then check Maricopa and Pima by hand.

How do you search Arizona court records by name?

Type the last name and first name, add the date of birth if the site offers the field, and read every result with a matching name. The statewide site returns a list of cases with the case type, the filing date, and the court that heard it. Open a case to see the charges, the plea, the sentence, and the current status.

Two habits save you from a wrong conclusion. Confirm the birth date, because Arizona has plenty of people who share a name. Then read the disposition line, not the charge line. A felony charge that ended in a dismissal, a not-guilty verdict, or a plea to a misdemeanor is not a felony conviction, and the charge line alone will not tell you that.

Why does Maricopa County Superior Court need its own search?

Because Maricopa County Superior Court is one of the courts the statewide site does not include. Maricopa handles more felony cases than any other court in Arizona, so a statewide search that returns nothing proves little for someone who has lived in Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, or Glendale. The county clerk runs a separate criminal case history search on the superior court website, and that is where you look up a Maricopa felony.

Pima County Superior Court works the same way. Both searches are free and both show the charges, the disposition, and the sentence. Check the county where the person lived at the time of the case, then check Maricopa regardless, since a large share of Arizona felony cases run through that one courthouse.

Does Arizona DPS let you run a criminal history on another person?

No. The Arizona Department of Public Safety keeps the state’s central criminal history repository, and the law bars DPS from running a name check on another person for a private citizen. Employers with a legal mandate, licensing boards, and law enforcement get access. You do not.

What DPS does offer is a record review of your own criminal history. You request a packet, get fingerprinted at a local police department, and mail it back. DPS mails you a copy of what it holds on you. That report is the closest thing Arizona has to the full record a fingerprint-based background check reads, so it is worth the effort when the name you are researching is your own.

What does a felony conviction look like on an Arizona court record?

A felony conviction shows a charge with a class number, a disposition line reading guilty, guilty plea, or convicted, and a sentence. Arizona sorts felonies into class 1 through class 6. Class 1 covers murder. Almost everything else you will see falls between class 2, the most serious, and class 6, the least serious.

The sentence line shows prison, jail, or probation, along with fines and restitution. An open case shows future hearing dates. A closed case shows the date probation ended or the sentence was completed. A conviction with no later entries is the plain version of a felony record. The cases that confuse people carry later entries, and the next sections cover those.

What do free Arizona record searches leave out?

More than most people assume. The statewide site posts its own list of gaps, and the list is long.

• Sealed cases do not appear.
• Juvenile delinquency cases do not appear.
• Seven Arizona courts do not participate, including the two busiest superior courts.
• The data updates once a week, so a fresh plea or a fresh dismissal takes days to show.
• The site states that its information may not be current, accurate, or complete, and that it is not the official record.

Federal felonies are missing too. A federal drug or fraud conviction in the District of Arizona lives in the federal court system, not in any Arizona court database. Convictions from other states do not show. And the DPS repository, which holds the fingerprint-linked record employers rely on, is closed to you. A clean court search is evidence, not proof.

Do arrests and dismissed charges show up in a felony search?

Yes, and this is where people misread a record. A court record exists the moment the prosecutor files a charge, so a felony charge the prosecutor later dismissed still sits in the search results with the word felony on it. The disposition line says dismissed, or not guilty, or no complaint filed. The charge line still says felony.

An arrest with no charge filed is different. No court record exists, so the court websites show nothing. The arrest still lives in police files and in the DPS repository, and it shows on fingerprint checks. As of 2026, Arizona law lets a person seal both kinds of record under A.R.S. § 13-911, and there is no waiting period at all on a dismissal, a not-guilty verdict, or an arrest that never became a charge. Our guide to sealing a dismissed case in Arizona walks through that filing.

What does a set aside look like on the record?

A set aside adds a line to the record. It does not remove one. When a judge grants a set aside under A.R.S. § 13-905, the judgment of guilt is set aside, the charge is dismissed, and the person is released from the penalties and disabilities of the conviction, with the exceptions the law lists. The clerk enters that order in the same public case file, so anyone who pulls the case sees the original conviction followed by an entry showing the set aside.

For an employer reading the file, the felony is still visible, with a note that the judge later set it aside. That is a real improvement, and it is not invisibility. A set aside is the tool for restoring rights and answering the conviction question honestly. Sealing is the tool for taking the case out of the search results, and the two are often filed together.

Is an undesignated class 6 felony a felony on a search result?

It shows as a class 6 felony, and the law treats it as a misdemeanor for most purposes. Under A.R.S. § 13-604(A), a judge who leaves a class 6 felony undesignated has ordered that the offense be treated as a misdemeanor for all purposes until the judge enters a final designation. A.R.S. § 13-604(B) carves out a short list where felony treatment still applies, including firearm rights and use as a prior.

A screener reading the docket does not know any of that. The record says class 6 felony, sometimes with the word undesignated beside it, and the reader stops at the word felony. Under A.R.S. § 13-604(C), the judge must designate the offense a misdemeanor once probation is completed and the person is discharged. Many people never ask for that order. Our page on how to designate a felony to a misdemeanor explains the filing.

Are paid background check sites more accurate than the court websites?

No. Paid people-search sites pull from the same public court records you searched for free, then store a copy, and a copy goes stale. A case sealed last year still sits on a data broker’s server until the broker refreshes its file, and some brokers refresh slowly or never. A dismissed charge sits there too, often stripped of its disposition line, so the reader sees a felony charge and nothing else.

The reverse problem exists as well. Brokers miss cases, merge two people who share a name, and drop older records. Treat a paid report as a lead to verify against the court’s own site, not as the final word. Our post on whether record sealing removes cases from background checks covers what a professional screener sees after a seal.

How does a sealing order remove a felony from these searches?

A sealing order under A.R.S. § 13-911 directs the clerk to seal every record of the arrest, the charge, the conviction, and the sentence, and to notify DPS and the prosecutor. Once the seal takes effect, the case drops off the public court search, the Maricopa docket, and the statewide site. DPS marks its own copy sealed and tells the police agencies that hold copies to do the same. The person may then state that they were never arrested for, charged with, or convicted of that crime on job, housing, and loan applications, with narrow exceptions for certain licenses and certain later charges.

Convictions carry a waiting period measured from the day the sentence ends and every fine is paid: 10 years for a class 2 or 3 felony, 5 years for a class 4, 5, or 6 felony, 3 years for a class 1 misdemeanor, and 2 years for a class 2 or 3 misdemeanor. After the judge grants, the clerk holds the record for 60 days before the seal takes effect. Sealing removes the public court record only. It does not pull a news article, a Google result, or a mugshot site. Our record sealing page covers the full filing.

Why should you choose AZ Record Removal?

Arizona record clearing is the only work we do. AZ Record Removal is owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law, and our founder, Zachary Divelbiss, sealed his own six-conviction record before the firm sealed anyone else’s. That is why the first thing we do is pull your record and tell you what a landlord or employer sees right now, before you pay.

We file the sealing application, the set aside, and the designation together when a case qualifies for all three. We track the docket and the 60-day window, answer the prosecutor’s objection if one comes, and handle every county in Arizona without asking you to travel. One flat fee covers the case, and our pricing page lists it. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day at 602-900-6240, and consultations are scheduled during business hours. We hold 250+ five-star Google reviews.

What should you do if the name you searched was your own?

Find out what the record says and whether the case qualifies for sealing. Start by searching your Arizona record with us, so you see the same case file a screener sees, including the disposition lines that decide whether the case is a conviction at all. Then take our free eligibility quiz to see which waiting period applies and whether it has run.

If the case qualifies, we file. If it does not yet qualify, we tell you the date it will, and what to finish before then. Call 602-900-6240 and we will walk through what happened in your case and what a judge is likely to see. No judge is required to grant a seal, and we put the strongest version of your application in front of the judge who decides.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you find out if someone is a felon in Arizona for free?

Search the person’s name on the Arizona Judicial Branch public access site, then search the Maricopa County and Pima County superior court dockets separately. Read the disposition line on each felony charge. Only a line reading guilty, guilty plea, or convicted means a felony conviction. Dismissed and not guilty mean no conviction, no matter what the charge line says.

Does a sealed felony show up in an Arizona court search?

No. Once the seal takes effect under A.R.S. § 13-911, the clerk removes the case from public view and the statewide site excludes sealed cases by rule. The record still exists for law enforcement, prosecutors, and a short list of agencies. Older copies held by data brokers or news sites stay online until those sites remove them.

Does an Arizona felony ever fall off the record on its own?

No. An Arizona felony conviction stays in the public court record until a judge orders it sealed. Time alone changes nothing, and no automatic purge exists for adult convictions. Time does matter in one way: it starts the waiting period under A.R.S. § 13-911 that has to run before a person files a sealing application.

What is the difference between a felony lookup and a background check?

A felony lookup is you reading public court records by name. A background check is a company reading those same records plus fingerprint-linked data from DPS and the FBI, for an employer or landlord with legal permission. The fingerprint version catches arrests and out-of-state cases the court websites miss. Sealing under A.R.S. § 13-911 reaches the Arizona court record and the DPS copy, with the exceptions the law lists.