Rhode Island Court Records: Public Portal Search and Expungement vs. Sealing

This article covers how to search Rhode Island court records on the state's Judiciary Public Portal, what's public versus restricted, and how Rhode Island's expungement and sealing statutes differ from each other. It does not cover other states; for those, see the Court Records by State hub.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How to Search Rhode Island Court Records

Rhode Island's public search tool is the Rhode Island Judiciary Public Portal, hosted at publicportal.courts.ri.gov and built on Tyler Technologies' Odyssey platform, the same underlying system several other states in this cluster use. The Portal offers a public Smart Search, described on its own landing page as a tool to search for court records, plus a separate Search Hearings function, both free. Attorneys and outside agencies that need broader access use a separate, elevated-access login rather than the general public tool.

The Portal sits behind a terms-of-use notice, which is a link to review rather than a hard click-through wall. Which specific courts and case types show up in a given search, meaning whether civil, criminal, and family matters are all covered to the same depth, is not spelled out in detail on the public landing page itself; if a particular case type is not appearing where you expect it, that is worth confirming directly with the court rather than assuming the Portal covers everything uniformly.

What's Public and What's Restricted

Rhode Island's electronic case-information access does not include sealed cases or documents, or confidential case types, documents, and information as defined by the judiciary's own rules governing electronic access, except where specifically authorized. Separately, Rhode Island's open-courts framework bars media coverage of juvenile proceedings, adoption proceedings, and Family Court matters where a juvenile is a significant participant, and state law requires the general public to be excluded from delinquency and dependency hearings.

Expungement and Sealing Are Different Tracks in Rhode Island

Rhode Island is one of the states where these two words point to genuinely different statutes, not two names for the same process, and the eligibility path depends on how your case actually ended.

Expungement, under Rhode Island General Laws Title 12, Chapter 1.3, is the track for someone who wants a felony or misdemeanor conviction cleared, and eligibility turns on a clean-record lookback measured from the filing date rather than a fixed wait after the sentence ends. For a single felony conviction, a motion generally becomes available once ten years have passed since the motion was filed without a new felony or misdemeanor conviction or arrest, no pending criminal proceeding, and demonstrated good moral character; for a single misdemeanor conviction, the same lookback is five years. Section 12-1.3-3(b)(1)(iii) sets out a separate, narrower track for someone with multiple misdemeanor convictions, who can petition after that same ten-year clean-record lookback, subject to specific statutory exclusions. The motion is filed in the court where the conviction took place.

Sealing, under Section 12-1-12.1, is the track for someone who was acquitted or otherwise exonerated rather than convicted. Since January 1, 2023, a case dismissed under district court Rule 48(a) is sealed automatically by the court, without the defendant filing anything, generally within 10 to 20 days of the dismissal; dismissals from before that date require the defendant to request administrative sealing from the clerk instead. For a person acquitted after trial, filing a motion is still required: notice of the hearing date has to go to the attorney general's office and the relevant police department at least ten days beforehand, and if the court finds the person entitled to sealing, the records are sealed within 45 days.

One exception cuts across both tracks: records involving domestic violence charges cannot be expunged or sealed for three years from the date the case was filed, regardless of how the case ended.

This article covers the concept and the statutory framework; for a full walk-through of eligibility by offense type, see Rhode Island Expungement Laws.

Certified Copies and Practical Search Tips

For questions about the Portal itself, Rhode Island Judiciary maintains a general help desk; for a certified copy of a specific record, contact the clerk of the court where the case was handled rather than expecting the Portal to issue one directly.

Using This Information the Right Way

A Rhode Island Portal search is meant for checking your own case or a matter you have a legitimate reason to look up, not for compiling information on someone else for employment or tenant screening. A name search alone is not a Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant background check, and using a people-search aggregator site for a screening decision carries real legal risk under federal law regardless of what the aggregator's marketing claims.

Related reading: Court Records by State, How to Look Up Court Records, Are Court Records Public?, Rhode Island Background Check Laws, Rhode Island Warrant Search, and Rhode Island Public Records Laws for records held by executive-branch agencies rather than the courts.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about Rhode Island court records, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Portal names, coverage, and fee information reflect their published status as of the verification date above and can change without notice. For advice about a specific case, expungement or sealing eligibility, or a specific record, consult a lawyer licensed in Rhode Island.

Last updated: 2026-08-10. Portal facts and fees reflect their published status as of August 2026.