Cook County Criminal Records

Separate Illinois files from another Cook County

The main court routes below concern Cook County, Illinois. If your case is in Cook County, Georgia, use its Superior Court Clerk at 212 N. Hutchinson Avenue, Adel, GA 31620, phone 229-896-7717. That office keeps criminal filings, while juvenile, adoption and military-discharge records are not generally public. Georgia matters are not part of the Illinois docket described here.

For Illinois, choose the record that answers your question: the Circuit Court clerk for a court filing or disposition, the Sheriff’s custody locator for a Cook County Jail detainee, or Illinois State Police for state repository information. A booking or arrest and a final conviction are not interchangeable. Record the state and court before attaching any result to a person.

Use the electronic docket to locate the court file

Start at the Clerk’s On-line Case Information page and follow its search link. The Clerk describes the electronic docket as brief summaries, not the official court record, and warns that updates may take several days. Preserve the case number, division, party identifiers and event dates. For a very recent filing, use courthouse public-access terminals or check again after the update interval.

Read how each charge ended instead of treating a pending case or preliminary hearing as proof of guilt. If a field is blank, it does not supply an answer about the missing fact. Obtain the relevant final order when a recipient needs authoritative evidence; a screenshot of the online summary is not a clerk-certified disposition.

Send the request to the correct Illinois division

The Criminal Department handles Chicago First Municipal District misdemeanors and felony preliminary hearings. For that branch, call 312-603-4641 or use [email protected]; the listed counter is the Daley Center, 50 W. Washington Street, Room 1006, Chicago, IL 60602. Its certified-disposition procedure requires the defendant’s name, birth date and arrest date. Include the case number if known.

Chicago felony trial files belong to the Criminal Division at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, 2650 S. California Avenue, fifth floor, Room 526, Chicago, IL 60608, phone 773-674-3140. Suburban districts keep felony records heard in their own locations. A Chicago preliminary-hearing contact is therefore not automatically the correct custodian for the trial disposition or a suburban case.

Request specific copies with form CCG 0026

The Clerk’s Record Search Request Form CCG 0026 asks for the division/district, parties, case number, filing and disposition dates, years to search, and the exact documents. Select regular or certified copies and supply your contact and return details. The form’s second page lists destinations; use a separate form for each address rather than combining unrelated divisions in one request.

The current form lists $6 per year searched, $2 for the first copied page, $0.50 each for pages 2–19, $0.25 for remaining pages, and $6 per certification, plus postage. It instructs applicants to send only the initial $6 search payment; the deputy clerk advises the balance. Mailed checks or money orders are payable to Clerk of the Circuit Court; do not mail cash. Follow the form’s required payment-identification fields.

If you perform your own search at a division’s terminals or in the case files, the form says no record-search fee is charged; pickup avoids postage. Ask the receiving division about any additional documents, certification and timing before assuming the initial $6 covers the whole order. No general copy-completion deadline is published in the current request form.

Respect restricted files and distinguish an error from sealing

The Criminal Division says impounded files or documents require a specific judicial order for review. A missing public result is not permission to obtain that material through another person. If the record contains a clerical error, identify the exact case and discrepancy for its clerk. Sealing or expungement is a different legal process; the division directs suburban cases to their respective districts.

If a commercial employment report associates you with another person’s case or omits the outcome, request the report, dispute the inaccurate entry with the screening company and retain the court disposition as evidence. A corrected court file may not automatically update every commercial copy, so keep confirmation of both correction requests.

Use Illinois State Police for the broader repository task

Illinois State Police public criminal-history dissemination under the Uniform Conviction Information Act is limited to conviction information. It is a separate collection from the Cook County court docket and does not make every pending charge public through that product. Use the ISP source below to select its stated purpose-specific request route rather than treating a county no-hit as statewide clearance.

For your own full record review, ISP describes fingerprint submission through an Illinois law-enforcement/correctional facility or licensed fingerprint vendor. The response includes a transcript and Record Challenge form, or a no-history statement. ISP charges no processing fee for Access and Review or a Record Challenge, although the fingerprint provider may charge. A written challenge response explains any correction or why no correction was made.