Minnesota Court Records Online (MCRO) is the official public portal for Minnesota district court records, operated by the Minnesota Judicial Branch. It allows anyone — free of charge — to search for criminal, civil, family, and traffic cases by defendant name, case number, or attorney name. MCRO is the primary source of public court record data in Minnesota.
For criminal cases, MCRO typically shows: the charges filed, the case number, court dates, the presiding judge, the attorneys of record, and the case status. It does not include the full text of charging documents (complaints) or police reports. Some records are restricted — cases involving juveniles, certain sensitive matters, and sealed or expunged cases are not publicly accessible through MCRO.
MN CRIME pulls data from the Minnesota court system and presents it in a more searchable, contextualized format than MCRO alone provides. While MCRO is the authoritative source for official case status, MN CRIME layers on our scoring system, charge categorization, trend analysis, and county-level context to help readers understand what the numbers mean.
The data you see on MN CRIME originates from court filing records. You can see today's newest complaints at mncrime.com/latest, research by defendant at mncrime.com/casevault/defendant-lookup, or analyze trends by county and charge type at mncrime.com/casevault. CaseVault is MN CRIME's purpose-built research environment for journalists, attorneys, and researchers who need more than basic case lookups.