Who Sees a Massachusetts Criminal Record

Criminal Offender Record Information, universally called CORI, is the Massachusetts criminal record. This page answers one question in detail: who can see it, and for how long. The mechanics of sealing and expungement, with the case law and the offense exclusions, are treated at Massachusetts sealing and expungement standards.

What CORI Is, and When the Record Begins

The definition in M.G.L. c. 6, § 167 does the work. CORI is information compiled by a Massachusetts criminal justice agency concerning an identifiable individual and relating to the nature or disposition of a criminal charge, an arrest, a pre-trial proceeding, other judicial proceedings, a dangerousness hearing under M.G.L. c. 276, § 58A, sentencing, incarceration, rehabilitation, or release.

Section 167 restricts CORI to information recorded in criminal proceedings that are not dismissed before arraignment. For an offense punishable by incarceration, arraignment is ordinarily the point at which the pending charge enters CORI. A denial at a clerk-magistrate hearing prevents a complaint and arraignment from that application, so no CORI entry results from the application. A pre-arraignment dismissal has the same CORI consequence. A police report, arrest record, Registry record, or other independent record may remain. A dismissal after arraignment changes the disposition but leaves a CORI entry unless and until the law permits sealing.

Section 167 separately excludes offenses that are not punishable by incarceration. That exclusion applies to ordinary first-paragraph unlicensed operation under G.L. c. 90, § 10, which G.L. c. 90, § 20 punishes by fines. Operating after suspension or revocation under G.L. c. 90, § 23 includes a fine-only classification and several classifications that authorize incarceration, so the charged classification controls this CORI question. Section 167 also excludes conduct by a person under eighteen unless the person was adjudicated as an adult in the Superior Court or after transfer from a juvenile session. It excludes evaluative information, statistical reports in which individuals are not identifiable, and intelligence information.

The Agency and the Portal

The record is maintained and disseminated by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, abbreviated DCJIS, established within the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security by M.G.L. c. 6, § 167A. The agency was called the Criminal History Systems Board until Chapter 256 of the Acts of 2010, the CORI reform, renamed it. Requests are made through a web portal called iCORI, and an employer, landlord, school, or volunteer organization must register for an iCORI account before it can request anything.

One naming point, because it causes confusion. CJIS is not the agency. CJIS is the Criminal Justice Information System, the law enforcement data system defined in 803 CMR 7.00. The board that survived the 2010 reform is the criminal record review board, established under M.G.L. c. 6, § 168, which sits within DCJIS and hears challenges to the accuracy of a record.

The Three Levels of Access

The statute, M.G.L. c. 6, § 172, runs thirty-three numbered paragraphs and uses no tier labels at all. The labels come from the regulation, 803 CMR 2.05, which provides that the three levels of CORI access are Required Access, Standard Access, and Open Access. What a requester sees depends entirely on which level applies to that requester.

Standard Access: Employers, Landlords, Volunteer Organizations, Licensing Boards

This is the level that applies to an ordinary job application, a rental application, a volunteer position, and an application for a state or municipal professional or occupational license. Section 172(a)(3) limits what is released to three categories:

• Felony convictions, and findings of not guilty by reason of insanity, for 10 years following the disposition, including termination of any period of incarceration or custody.
• Misdemeanor convictions for 5 years following the disposition, including termination of any period of incarceration or custody.
• Pending criminal charges.

Three details inside those three lines change outcomes, and they are the details most often left out.

The clock runs from the later of two dates. 803 CMR 2.05(4)(a) states it without ambiguity: the window runs for five or ten years “following the date of disposition or date of release from incarceration or custody, whichever is later.” A person who served time counts from release, not from the day of the plea.

A continuance without a finding shows as a pending charge while it runs. Section 172(a)(3) provides that pending criminal charges “shall include cases that have been continued without a finding until such time as the case is dismissed pursuant to section 18 of chapter 278.” A client who takes a continuance without a finding and then applies for a job during the probationary period will show a pending charge to a standard-access employer. Once the case is dismissed at the end of the term, it becomes a non-conviction and disappears from this level.

A new conviction re-exposes the old ones. The statute provides that “prior misdemeanor and felony conviction records shall be available for the entire period that the subject’s last available conviction record is available under this section.” A single new misdemeanor pulls a twenty-year-old conviction back into view for five more years.

Two further points. A violation of M.G.L. c. 209A, § 7 or M.G.L. c. 258E, § 9, which is a violation of a restraining or harassment prevention order, is treated as a felony for this purpose and carries the ten-year window. And non-convictions are not released at this level at all. The statute says the information “shall be limited to” the three categories above. A dismissal, a nolle prosequi, a finding of not guilty, and a continuance without a finding that has terminated in dismissal are not shown to a standard-access requester, sealed or not.

Required Access: Schools, Camps, Childcare, Elder and Disabled Care

Required Access under M.G.L. c. 6, § 172(a)(2) applies to a requester authorized or required by a statute, a regulation, or an accreditation requirement to obtain CORI. It is not one level but four, set out in 803 CMR 2.05, each building on the one before.

• Required 1. All pending charges, including a continuance without a finding until it is dismissed; all adult misdemeanor and felony convictions with no lookback limit at all; offenses for which the subject was adjudicated as an adult; and the permanently available convictions described below.
• Required 2. Everything in Required 1, plus criminal offenses that did not result in a conviction.
• Required 3. Everything in Required 2, plus all juvenile offenses, including pending charges.
• Required 4. Everything in Required 3, plus criminal offenses that have been sealed.

The practical consequence is the one clients find hardest to hear. A conviction that an ordinary employer stopped seeing years ago is still visible, without any time limit, to a school district under M.G.L. c. 71, § 38R, to a children’s camp under M.G.L. c. 6, § 172G, to an entity providing services to an elderly or disabled person under M.G.L. c. 6, § 172C, and to the Department of Early Education and Care under M.G.L. c. 6, § 172F. Sections 172B and 172F go further still, expressly making conviction data, arrest data, sealed record data, and juvenile arrest or conviction data available for foster and adoptive placement decisions.

Section 38R contains a limit worth knowing: DCJIS “shall only disseminate information under this section that would otherwise be available to requesting entities under sections 167 through 178, inclusive, of chapter 6” and the regulations under them. School districts also run separate fingerprint-based state and national checks, which are a federal process and not CORI.

Open Access: The General Public

Any member of the public may request a record on a named person by supplying a correct name and date of birth. Section 172(a)(4) limits what comes back to four categories, and the windows are much shorter than at standard access:

• Convictions, and findings of not guilty by reason of insanity, for any felony punishable by 5 years or more, for 10 years after disposition including release from custody.
• Custody status and placement for a person currently serving probation or a sentence, or under the custody of the parole board.
• Other felony convictions and insanity findings for 2 years.
• Misdemeanor convictions for 1 year.

Open access shows no pending charges and no non-convictions. A member of the public who looks up a neighbor with an open case will see nothing about it.

Your Own Record, and the Self-Audit

Under M.G.L. c. 6, § 172(a)(5) and § 175, a person may obtain all CORI pertaining to that person, and § 175 gives the right to inspect and, if practicable, obtain a copy. There is no lookback on a personal request. Convictions, non-convictions, and pending cases all appear.

A self-audit is a different thing and the two are often confused. Under 803 CMR 2.02 a self-audit is a report of all CORI requests made on the requesting individual through iCORI, apart from requests by criminal justice agencies. It shows who has looked, not what they saw. A person who suspects an employer ran a check without authorization asks for the self-audit.

DCJIS does not hold sealed records for this purpose and does not seal records. Sealing is administered by the Commissioner of Probation, and a sealed record is obtained there.

The Convictions That Never Age Off

Section 172(b) removes four categories from every lookback. Convictions for murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and sex offenses as defined in M.G.L. c. 6, § 178C that are punishable by a term of incarceration in state prison “shall remain in the database permanently and shall be available to all requestors listed in paragraphs (1) through (3),” which means criminal justice agencies, required access requesters, and ordinary employers and landlords alike.

The subsection ends with five words that matter: “unless sealed under section 100A of chapter 276.” Sealing is the exception the statute names. That is the entire argument for pursuing a seal in a case where the client has assumed nothing can be done.

What Sealing Changes

A sealed record is not erased, but the answer given to a requester changes completely. Under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100A, the Commissioner of Probation, responding to an authorized person other than a law enforcement agency, a court, or an appointing authority, “shall in the case of a sealed record… report that no record exists.” Section 100C imposes the same rule on clerks of the District Court, the Superior Court, and the Boston Municipal Court.

The statute also protects the answer the person gives. Section 100A provides that an applicant for employment, housing, or an occupational or professional license with a sealed record on file “may answer ‘no record’” to an inquiry about prior arrests, court appearances, or convictions. Section 100C adds that sealed records “shall not operate to disqualify a person in any examination, appointment or application for public employment” in the Commonwealth or any of its subdivisions, and gives the Attorney General power to enforce that by suit in equity.

Two limits should be stated honestly rather than discovered later. Criminal justice agencies, firearms licensing authorities under M.G.L. c. 140, § 121, and the criminal record review board obtain sealed records under § 172(a)(1). And under § 100C, after a finding or verdict of guilty on a later offense, a sealed record is made available to the probation officer, and to the court as well, with the exception of a not guilty finding, a no bill, or a finding of no probable cause.

The waiting periods, the offenses excluded from sealing, the Pon good cause factors, the J.F. rule of mandatory sealing for a not guilty finding, the K.W. standard for expungement under § 100K, and the categorical exclusions in § 100J are set out with full citations at Massachusetts sealing and expungement standards, which also explains what a state seal does and does not do to an FBI record.

Where a Restraining Order Is Recorded

A Massachusetts restraining order follows a different set of rules than the criminal records described on this page. A 209A abuse prevention order or a 258E harassment prevention order is a civil order, so it does not appear in CORI, and the sealing and expungement statutes that govern criminal records do not apply to it. The order is recorded in the statewide registry that judges consult in later cases, and it can be expunged only on clear and convincing proof of fraud on the court. Serpa Law Office explains the registry, the databases that hold the record, and the expungement standard on its page on expunging a Massachusetts restraining order and answers common questions in its restraining order expungement FAQs.

For the federal side of the picture, the FBI identification record, the national instant check system, and the reporting limits of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, see the federal section of the firm’s page on sealing and expunging a criminal record.

How a domestic violence case creates records that a background check later reveals is answered in the firm’s Massachusetts domestic violence records FAQ.

Whether a federal criminal record can ever be cleared is addressed in the firm’s post on United States v. Coloian.

Attorney Joe Serpa has practiced Massachusetts criminal defense since 1995. He represents clients at clerk-magistrate hearings and in criminal cases involving domestic violence, drug charges, OUI, and other Massachusetts offenses. He also advises clients about the criminal-record consequences of the charge and disposition. Call 617.936.0201 or contact Serpa Law Office for a confidential consultation.