Thanks that is what I suspected. Would you happen to know if a court from the US could get a copy of arrest records from another country?
Yes, but not all courts bother to ask, and its hard to tell what they do with the information even if they receive it. On the other hand, the police and the immigration service do a lot of asking.
This is the bread and butter of what's known as mutual legal assistance. If a suspect under investigation for a serious offense in the U.S. is known to have stayed some time in another country, the police will often contact their colleagues abroad to ask whether he or she has a record. The type of information exchanged by the police will often include arrests, and not just convictions handed down by a court. Depending on the case, the police agency and the country, the U.S. police may even be provided with "criminal intelligence", in other words suspicions that the person in question is or has been involved in criminal activity abroad, even if the info has not been solid enough to lead to an arrest.
Because all this requires some hassle and expense, however, the police wont bother asking when they are investigating run-of-the-mill offenses.
As for other government agencies, foreign convictions can stop U.S. citizens from receiving welfare benefits, public housing or (certain) employment, or from getting a drivers license, buying a firearm, voting or serving on a jury. Generally, the government agencies in question dont have the right to access foreign criminal records, but should they happen to come across the information, they may well use it. (In most countries, if a U.S. citizen is convicted of a more serious offense, the local U.S. embassy would be informed. I assume that this information would then be shared with other U.S. agencies.)
Things are more direct with immigration. Since 9/11, the immigration service has received wide powers and more resources to carry out background checks, including asking about criminal records in other countries. Although the obvious aim is to stop foreign terrorists from entering the country, the information received is routinely used to stop foreigners convicted of other offenses (such as drug trafficking or sex offenses) from entering the country, seeking employment or applying for citizenship.
But you were asking about U.S. courts. Yes, they (or in practice prosecutors or probation officers) can ask for criminal records, and the prevailing thinking in the U.S. is that foreign convictions should be considered in sentencing. There are lots of arguments for doing so fairness, better risk assessment, and so on.
There are lots of problems, however. First, how do you know where the defendant has spent his or her time, and thus which country to ask? Second, not all countries provide criminal records, although most do. (In general, its easier to get an extract from Europe, for example, than it is from Mexico.) Third, whats contained in these records may vary considerably. (Some countries only include certain serious offenses; others include just about everything, including traffic fines. Some countries almost never expunge old records; other countries delete at least minor and medium-level offenses already after a few years have elapsed.) Fourth, since the laws of countries are so different, its hard to know how much weight to give different convictions and sentences handed down abroad.
Finally, its almost impossible to see whether or not the courts use the information that they actually receive on foreign convictions. According to the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines, foreign convictions are *
not* factored in when a defendants criminal record score is calculated, but then these Guidelines go on to say that foreign convictions
can be taken into consideration. In some states, on the other hand, the applicable sentencing guidelines clearly say that foreign convictions should be factored in, just like any conviction by a court in the U.S.
Bottom line: if you have been arrested for drunk and disorderly while on that wild spring vacation many years ago down in Mexico, or been fined for a traffic violation in the UK, you can breathe a sigh of relief: this information will probably never be tapped in the U.S. But if youve been running drugs in Germany, or gotten into a knife fight in Thailand, the courts in the U.S. will probably find out.
