Start with the court level that actually handled the case
Dallas criminal records are split between several government systems. Dallas County District Clerk handles felony court records, the Dallas County Clerk handles Class A and Class B misdemeanor records, Dallas Municipal Court handles City of Dallas Class C misdemeanor and ordinance cases, the Sheriff’s Office maintains county jail and warrant information, and Texas DPS maintains statewide criminal-history data. Choosing the correct system first is much faster than searching the same name everywhere.
Dallas has three different local criminal-court paths
One of the biggest mistakes is treating “Dallas criminal court” as one office. The correct clerk depends on the seriousness and type of offense.
Dallas County District Clerk
The District Clerk is the custodian of criminal records for Dallas County’s felony courts. Dallas County currently has seventeen district courts hearing felony criminal matters.
Dallas County Clerk
The County Clerk maintains records for the Dallas County Criminal Courts that hear Class A and Class B misdemeanor cases.
Dallas Municipal Court
City-level Class C misdemeanors, traffic cases and municipal-ordinance violations are handled through Dallas Municipal Court.
Search Dallas County felony and misdemeanor cases online
Dallas County provides an official Criminal Background Search covering felony and misdemeanor court case information.
The search interface supports both name searches and case-number searches.
Open Dallas County Criminal Search Dallas County Courts PortalFields available in the Dallas County name search
- last name
- first name
- middle name
- name type
- race
- sex
- date of birth
- pending-case filter
Start with the full legal name
Enter the last name first and add first and middle name when known. A DOB is especially helpful for common Dallas-area names.
Use case number when available
A case number is usually more reliable than repeating several variations of a name search.
Open the individual case
Review charge information, case status, disposition and case history.
Check whether the record is felony or misdemeanor
This tells you whether to contact the District Clerk or County Clerk for certified documents.
Get the clerk’s record when the result matters
Online case summaries are useful for research. A certified court document is better for formal proof or correcting another database.
Dallas County felony criminal records
The Dallas County District Clerk is the custodian of felony criminal court records. It also maintains records for the Magistrate Court in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center.
Dallas County states that online criminal case information is available for cases dating back to approximately 1975. For most felony cases filed after 2009, case documents are also available online.
Official felony-record guidance: Dallas County District Clerk Criminal Records.
What may not appear online
The District Clerk states that sealed records and records made confidential under state or federal law are not publicly available online. Records containing children’s names or the names of sexual-assault victims are also withheld from ordinary online access and, when otherwise public, may require an in-person request.
Dallas County misdemeanor records use a different clerk
Class A and Class B misdemeanor cases are maintained by the Dallas County Clerk Criminal Courts Division.
Dallas County currently operates eleven County Criminal Courts and two criminal appellate courts for appeals coming from justice-of-the-peace and municipal courts.
County Clerk Criminal Courts Division
Frank Crowley Courts Building133 N. Riverfront Boulevard
2nd Floor, Room A-1
Dallas, TX 75207
Phone:
(214) 653-7099
Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m., excluding court-approved holidays.
Online misdemeanor documents
The County Clerk says plain copies of misdemeanor records from 2011 to the present can be viewed through the Dallas County Court Portal.
City of Dallas Class C misdemeanors are searched through Municipal Court
Dallas Municipal Court is a court of record that handles Class C misdemeanor offenses, traffic cases and violations of City ordinances.
Examples can include traffic violations, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and other qualifying fine-only offenses.
Dallas Municipal Citation & Docket SearchYou can search by
- citation number
- name and date of birth
- docket number
- Dallas Police case number
The Municipal Court also offers a “similar-sounding names” option when a name is hyphenated, misspelled or otherwise difficult to match.
How to read a Dallas criminal case correctly
A matching name or booking entry does not tell you how a criminal case ended. Read the case history and disposition before drawing conclusions.
| Record item | What it tells you | What to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Case number | Unique court-file identifier. | Save it for copy requests and future searches. |
| Charge | Alleged criminal offense filed in the case. | A charge is not automatically a conviction. |
| Case status | Whether the matter is pending, closed or otherwise classified. | Review the latest docket activity. |
| Disposition | How the charge or case was resolved. | Check each count separately. |
| Sentence | Court-ordered punishment or conditions after a qualifying disposition. | Do not read sentencing information without checking the related count. |
| Bond | Release/bail information related to custody. | A bond does not indicate guilt. |
Older Dallas records need a different strategy
1975 forward
Dallas County says online felony/misdemeanor case information generally reaches back to 1975. Actual felony documents are much more complete online for cases filed after 2009.
2011 forward
Plain misdemeanor documents from 2011 onward can generally be viewed through the county portal.
Off-site retrieval
Pre-2011 misdemeanor files may be stored off-site and can require advance retrieval.
If the online portal confirms a case existed but a document is missing, contact the appropriate records desk instead of assuming the file no longer exists.
Getting plain or certified Dallas criminal court records
Felony copies
The Dallas County District Clerk provides many post-2009 felony documents online at no charge, but certified or otherwise unavailable felony records should be requested through the District Clerk’s Criminal Records section.
Requests can be submitted at the felony records counter or by email at: DCRecordsCriminal@dallascounty.org.
District Clerk Felony Records Desk
Frank Crowley Courts Building133 N. Riverfront Boulevard
2nd Floor
Dallas, Texas
Records desk:
(214) 653-5950
Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Misdemeanor copies
| Service | Current County Clerk fee | Useful note |
|---|---|---|
| Misdemeanor record search | $5 | Used for a Dallas County misdemeanor record search. |
| Plain copy | $1 per page | No certification. |
| Certified copy | $1 per page + $5 certification | Useful when formal authentication is required. |
| Exemplified copy | $1 per page + $5 exemplification per packet | Use only when this higher authentication is specifically requested. |
| Archive file retrieval | $2 per file | Can apply to an older stored file. |
For a misdemeanor background search by mail, the County Clerk asks for the person’s full name, date of birth, payment and a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Misdemeanor record requests may also be sent to: DC.CriminalRecords@dallascounty.org.
When an in-person courthouse search is worth the trip
Visit the Frank Crowley Courts Building when you need:
- a certified felony record
- a certified misdemeanor record
- an older file that is not online
- a record withheld from remote access but available at the counter
- help identifying the correct criminal case
- a felony certification for licensing or another formal purpose
Frank Crowley Courts Building
133 N. Riverfront BoulevardDallas, TX 75207
Both the District Clerk felony records operation and County Clerk criminal division have offices in this building.
Frank Crowley Courts Building map
This is the main local courthouse location for Dallas County felony and county-level misdemeanor criminal records.
Dallas County jail and booking records
Current county custody information is handled by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office Inmate Information system.
Find Dallas County Jail LookupDallas County publishes a Jail Lookup link from its official records and Sheriff’s pages. For help with an inmate lookup, the Sheriff’s Office currently lists: (214) 761-9025.
Booking photographs
The Sheriff’s Public Information Officer says booking photographs for people still in Dallas County custody can be accessed through Jail Lookup. For someone no longer in custody, the Sheriff’s office asks requesters to provide identifying information such as name, DOB and charges so the search can be narrowed.
Dallas County and City of Dallas warrants are not the same search
Dallas County provides a Dallas County Wanted Search that supports searches by name, zip code, case number, citation number and other identifiers.
Dallas County Wanted SearchThe Dallas County Sheriff’s Office also lists a warrant-information line: (214) 761-9026.
City of Dallas municipal warrants
Municipal-court warrant information is shown through the City of Dallas Citation Search. The current Municipal Court system displays warrants in red when the associated citation is retrieved.
How to request a Dallas Police arrest or offense report
Dallas Police records are City of Dallas records, not Dallas County court records. The City handles police public-information requests under the Texas Public Information Act.
The City currently lists a dedicated Dallas Police open-records unit at: (214) 671-3343.
City of Dallas Open RecordsDallas Police’s current records-request form allows requests for items including:
- offense reports
- arrest reports
- prosecution reports
- investigative files
- 911 call sheets
- 911 audio
- body-camera records
- dash-camera records
Include enough detail to identify the record
Useful information can include the service/report number, date of occurrence, person’s name, location, type of report and your relationship to the person involved when relevant.
Dallas County Sheriff’s public-record requests
Records created by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office are requested from the County, not through the City of Dallas Police Department.
The Sheriff’s Office maintains a Public Information Requests page for releasable Sheriff’s records under the Texas Public Information Act.
Use Texas DPS for statewide criminal-history information
Dallas County court records cover Dallas County. If you want qualifying statewide Texas criminal-history information, use the Texas DPS Public Criminal History Search.
Texas DPS public access focuses on qualifying conviction and deferred-adjudication information, including related arrest information when publicly releasable.
Texas DPS Criminal History SearchFor your own identity-specific Texas criminal-history record, a fingerprint-based DPS Personal Review is more reliable than repeatedly searching your name.
Texas prison and parole records are searched through TDCJ
If the person may be in Texas state prison or under TDCJ supervision, use the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Offender Search.
The search supports name, SID number and TDCJ number. It also supports wildcard searches using an asterisk when only part of a name or identifier is known.
TDCJ Offender SearchTexas sex-offender records use a separate DPS registry
Texas DPS maintains the statewide public sex-offender registry using registration information supplied by local law-enforcement agencies.
Texas Public Sex Offender RegistryDallas County criminal appeals can move to the Fifth Court of Appeals
The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas hears civil and criminal appeals from district and county courts in Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman and Rockwall counties.
If you find a Dallas County case and want to know whether it was appealed, search the Texas appellate case system or the Fifth Court of Appeals case-information tools.
Fifth Court of AppealsFifth Court of Appeals
George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building600 Commerce Street, Suite 200
Dallas, TX 75202
Phone: (214) 712-3400
Federal criminal cases in Dallas use PACER
Federal criminal prosecutions are separate from Dallas County and Dallas Municipal Court. Dallas is served by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.
Search Federal Cases with PACER Northern District of TexasDallas Division — U.S. District Court
Earle Cabell Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse1100 Commerce Street, Room 1452
Dallas, TX 75242
Phone:
(214) 753-2200
Office hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Expunction and nondisclosure can change what appears publicly
Dallas County District Clerk handles local filing procedures for qualifying expunction and nondisclosure matters.
The District Clerk recommends reviewing current eligibility information and, where appropriate, consulting an attorney before filing because the clerk cannot provide legal advice.
Dallas County Expunction & NondisclosureIf you are checking your own record after an order, search the Dallas County public portal again and contact the clerk if the local public record still appears unexpectedly.
What to do if a Dallas criminal record is inaccurate
First identify where the error lives.
Contact the clerk
If the Dallas County court file itself shows an incorrect or incomplete disposition, contact the District Clerk or County Clerk that maintains the case.
Use DPS Error Resolution
If the court record is correct but Texas DPS does not reflect it properly, obtain certified court documentation and use DPS’s criminal-history correction process.
Contact the publisher
A private background or people-search website maintains its own database and may require a separate correction request.
Dallas criminal-record search tips that save time
Felony or misdemeanor first
That one distinction tells you whether the District Clerk or County Clerk is the records custodian.
Class C? Switch to City court
Dallas Municipal Court is the better search for fine-only city offenses and citations.
Add DOB on common names
Dallas County’s criminal search provides DOB filters that can reduce false matches.
Save the full case number
It makes copy requests, court calls and later disposition checks much easier.
Post-2009 felony?
Check the online documents before paying for or requesting copies from the clerk.
Pre-2011 misdemeanor?
Call ahead because older County Clerk files can require off-site retrieval.
Recent Dallas citation?
Give Municipal Court up to 10 business days before assuming the citation is missing.
Check the county boundary
Dallas city limits reach beyond Dallas County, so an outer-city incident may belong to another county court.
Police report vs court record
Request the DPD report for the police event; use the clerk for the filed criminal case.
Need statewide history?
Move to Texas DPS rather than repeating the Dallas County name search.
Current custody?
Jail Lookup is faster than searching a resolved court docket for current incarceration status.
Never stop at the charge
Read the final disposition before describing what happened in the case.
Common questions about criminal records in Dallas
1. Where can I search Dallas County criminal cases for free?
Use the official Dallas County Criminal Background Search or the Dallas County and District Court Case Information portal. Public registration is not required for the main court portal.
2. Where are Dallas felony criminal records kept?
Dallas County felony criminal records are maintained by the District Clerk. Online case information generally reaches back to 1975, and most felony case documents filed after 2009 are available online.
3. Where are Dallas misdemeanor criminal records kept?
Class A and Class B misdemeanor records are maintained by the Dallas County Clerk’s Criminal Courts Division. Plain misdemeanor documents from 2011 forward are generally available online.
4. How do I search Dallas Municipal Court cases?
Use the City of Dallas Citation and Docket Search. It supports citation number, name and DOB, docket number and Dallas Police case number searches. Municipal warrants are shown in red.
5. How long does it take for a Dallas citation to appear online?
Dallas Municipal Court says it can take up to 10 business days for a newly issued citation to appear in its online system.
6. How do I find someone in the Dallas County jail?
Use the Dallas County Sheriff’s Jail Lookup / Inmate Information service. The Sheriff’s current inmate-information phone number is 214-761-9025.
7. How do I check for a Dallas County warrant?
Use the official Dallas County Wanted Search or contact the Sheriff’s warrant-information line at 214-761-9026. City of Dallas municipal-court warrants are checked through the Municipal Court citation system.
8. How do I get a certified Dallas criminal record?
Felony certified records should be requested from the Dallas County District Clerk. Misdemeanor certified records are handled by the County Clerk. Current County Clerk fees include $1 per page plus a $5 certification charge for misdemeanor certified copies.
9. Does Dallas County criminal search include all Texas criminal records?
No. Dallas County covers its local court system. Use the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal History Search for qualifying statewide Texas criminal-history information.
10. Why might an old Dallas criminal case not appear online?
Older documents may not have been digitized, a file may be stored off-site, the record may be sealed or subject to nondisclosure, or the case may belong to another court or county. Contact the appropriate clerk when the online result is incomplete.
Official sources for continuing a Dallas criminal-record search
- Dallas County — Felony and Misdemeanor Criminal Background Search
- Dallas County — Online Record Search
- Dallas County District Clerk — Felony Criminal Records
- Dallas County Clerk — Criminal Courts Division
- Dallas Municipal Court — Citation & Docket Search
- Dallas County Sheriff — Inmate Information
- Dallas County Wanted Search
- City of Dallas — Open Records Requests
- Dallas County Sheriff — Public Information Requests
- Texas DPS — Public Criminal History Search
- TDCJ — Offender Search
- Texas Public Sex Offender Registry
- Texas Fifth Court of Appeals — Dallas
- PACER — Federal Court Case Search
- U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas
- Dallas County — Expunction and Nondisclosure