When someone is arrested, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re guilty of a crime. After all, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in the United States. For this reason, you’ll find that criminal records may not be available until a conviction is reached, so it’s important to understand what convictions are and how they work in a criminal court.
So, what are convictions? Well, if you stick around, you’ll find out everything you need to know about them. In this comprehensive guide, we cover what convictions are, how to find them, and much more.
What Are Convictions?
A conviction is a formal judgment of guilt in a courtroom. Essentially, when the prosecution wants to prove that someone is guilty, a conviction is what must be reached. Typically, convictions also lead to punishments, which may include jail time, fines, and other legal problems.
At the end of the day, a conviction confirms that someone is guilty. They also tend to include details about the specific outcome of a case, the sentence, and much more.
Are Convictions a Public Record?
Yes, criminal convictions tend to be a public record. You’ll find that most convictions are publicly available because criminal records tend to be available to the public. For this reason, you’ll find that a conviction can be found by running a criminal records search. There are numerous tools that can help you accomplish this as long as the record isn’t sealed or expunged.
Speaking of a record being sealed or expunged, when this happens, convictions are no longer a public record. In fact, sometimes you’ll have trouble finding convictions if it’s been more than seven to ten years due to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). State laws also impact how long information about convictions is available for, so keep all of this in mind before you begin your search.
How to Find a Conviction
There are a few ways to find convictions, but some options are better than others. Since they’re public records, you can contact the court where the conviction was given, but you can also leverage third-party tools.
Learn more about the best options below.
UnMask
When you want to find a conviction, one of the best tools to use is a reliable criminal records search tool, which is exactly what UnMask offers. To find a conviction on someone’s criminal record, you can simply enter their first and last name into the criminal records search.
From there, UnMask will do the rest, and after combing through millions of public records, the tool will compile a full report that contains all available public records associated with someone. Of course, this includes convictions, but you’ll also find general criminal records, jail sentencing, and much more.
With UnMask, you’ll also find social media accounts, websites, contact information, and much more. For these reasons, we always recommend searching for convictions with UnMask for the best results.
Contact the Courthouse
When it comes to finding convictions at the court level, you’ll need to contact the court where the case was handled. If you don’t know where the case was held, don’t worry, because tools like UnMask will help you find the right court.
Once you find the court, you can reach out via phone, email, or even mail. In fact, you can even head down to the court and request information in person.
For federal cases, you can follow a similar route, although you’ll need to check FBI databases and sometimes federal courts.
What Are Convictions? Our Final Thoughts
So, what is a conviction? Ultimately, a conviction is a formal judgment of guilt from a judge in a courtroom. When someone is convicted of a crime, the conviction is made public, including details of fines, sentencing, and much more. In fact, whether or not a conviction is made determines the outcome of whether or not you can view the records.
Aside from knowing what a conviction is, it’s not a bad idea to know how to find them, especially if you want to run a background check or get to know someone. Thankfully, tools like UnMask always make it easy to find all available criminal records.
