Federal Criminal Court Records

What PACER can establish in a federal criminal case

PACER is the official electronic access system for federal court records, and the Case Locator helps identify federal cases across the judiciary. Once the case is located, the docket is the roadmap to public filings and court activity. A result should be reported with the court, case number, party/defendant name, and relevant date so that another researcher can reproduce the lookup.

Public access still has boundaries. Sealed documents and other restricted material do not become public merely because a case number appears. Criminal cases can also have document-level access limits. If a docket references a document that is unavailable, state that limitation instead of reconstructing the contents from headlines or third-party summaries. PACER’s nationwide reach is nationwide within the federal courts, not a replacement for state criminal-court databases.

For online retrieval, register for a PACER Case Search Only account; registration is free. As checked October 2, 2026, PACER pricing is $0.10 per page, generally capped at $3 per document. Search results, non-case-specific reports and transcripts have no $3 cap; even a no-match search can incur a fee. Charges totaling $30 or less in a calendar quarter are waived.

Court opinions and viewing case information at a federal courthouse are free. A case party receiving an electronic notice gets one free copy, and a court-granted fee exemption may also apply. Use the known court and case number, and limit docket date ranges, to avoid unnecessary search/report pages. These cost rules do not open sealed or restricted documents.

Use the federal docket as the audit trail for the case

For reproducible research, cite the federal court, case number, docket entry number when relevant, and document date. Those identifiers allow another reader to return to PACER and see the same public material. They also help distinguish a criminal case from a civil case involving the same name. When a docket entry is sealed or otherwise restricted, the correct conclusion is that the public copy is unavailable through ordinary access, not that the document contains any particular fact.