Brown County arrest records split across two systems: court filings live in Indiana’s statewide MyCase portal at Indiana MyCase docket search, while booking records originate with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, reachable at (812) 988-6655 with admin hours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Brown County Circuit Court — housed in the historic Brown County Courthouse in Nashville — handles all criminal filings for the county. Call the Courthouse at (812) 988-5510 to confirm current Clerk hours before driving; the Clerk’s Office accepts in-person cash payments weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
If someone you know was just booked tonight, our Brown County inmate-search page has phone-first contact info.
If you need records outside Brown County
A nationwide search may help when the name you’re checking has ties to other Indiana counties or other states. Brown County’s MyCase portal covers only cases filed here — it won’t surface records from neighboring Monroe, Bartholomew, or Jackson counties, federal cases, or arrests that predate the portal’s online window. A third-party database search may help fill gaps that local portals often leave, though per-jurisdiction completeness varies and results should be verified against official sources.
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How to look up arrest records in Brown County
Records created after Indiana’s courts moved to digital case management are searchable online; older paper records require a direct request to the Clerk or Sheriff. The MyCase portal indexes Brown County Circuit Court filings going back to the mid-2000s for most case types, but records from earlier decades exist only in paper form at the Brown County Courthouse in Nashville.
MyCase — court-side records. Go to Indiana MyCase and search by name or case number. You’ll see charges, hearing dates, attorney of record, and dispositions for cases filed in Brown County Circuit Court. MyCase is free and requires no account. Note that MyCase reflects court filings — it is not a booking database, so an arrest that never produced a court filing may not appear here.
Brown County Sheriff’s Department — booking records. The Brown County Sheriff’s Department records page is the county’s primary source for booking-side information. Call (812) 988-6655 during weekday admin hours (Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4 p.m.) to request a specific booking record or ask about the current records-request fee. You can also mail a written request to P.O. Box 95, Nashville, IN 47448. The Brown County Law Enforcement Center at 55 State Road 46 East, Nashville, Indiana 47448 is where in-person requests are handled.
Brown County Circuit Court Clerk — court-side paper records. For records that predate MyCase’s online window, contact the Clerk’s Office directly at the Brown County Courthouse. Call (812) 988-5510 to confirm what years are available digitally versus on paper, and to ask about the current per-page copy fee. The Clerk accepts in-person cash payments weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Indiana Judicial Branch: Brown County page lists current court contact details and links to the Circuit Court’s docket.
Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) — state prison records. If the person you’re researching was sentenced to a state facility rather than held locally, the IDOC offender search covers individuals in state custody. Brown County Jail at 55 State Road 46 East holds pre-trial detainees and short sentences; longer sentences transfer to IDOC facilities. The Brown County Jail page has current jail contact information.
A practical note: the Sheriff’s admin line can be busy during peak morning hours. If you’re driving to the Law Enforcement Center, confirm hours haven’t shifted — some satellite operations run limited midday windows.
Are Brown County arrest records public?
Indiana’s open-records framework extends to nearly all adult criminal records, making Brown County arrest records presumptively public documents. The controlling statute is Ind. Code § 5-14-3, the Indiana Access to Public Records Act (APRA), which establishes that booking records — including booking photos — are open to the public by default. Journalists, paralegals, and researchers have the same access rights as any individual making a request; there is no special press credential required to obtain records under APRA.
Reporters and researchers making volume requests should direct written APRA requests to the Brown County Sheriff’s Department at P.O. Box 95, Nashville, IN 47448, or to the Brown County Circuit Court Clerk at the Brown County Courthouse, (812) 988-5510. Agencies must respond within a reasonable time under APRA; call to confirm current turnaround expectations before filing a formal request.
The default-public rule has narrow exceptions. Juvenile records are confidential under Indiana law and are not accessible through APRA requests. Cases that have been expunged under Ind. Code § 35-38-9 are removed from public view — the record still exists in law-enforcement systems, but public portals like MyCase will no longer display it. Victim-identifying information in certain case types (domestic violence, sexual assault) may be redacted before release. Ongoing investigations may also have limited information available until charges are filed.
Mugshot release in Brown County follows the Sheriff’s Department’s standard booking-record policy. Call (812) 988-6655 to ask about the current process for obtaining a specific booking photo — the policy isn’t posted in detail online.
One practical distinction: MyCase shows court-filed records, which are public under Indiana’s court-access rules. The Sheriff’s booking database is a separate system governed by APRA. A name may appear in one but not the other, depending on whether charges were formally filed.
What’s in a Brown County arrest record?
Depending on which system you pull from, the fields you see will differ — the Sheriff’s booking entry and the Circuit Court docket entry are separate documents that sometimes tell different parts of the same story.
Sheriff’s booking record (booking-side). When someone is arrested and brought to the Brown County Jail at 55 State Road 46 East, Nashville, the Sheriff’s Department creates a booking entry. That entry typically includes: full legal name and date of birth, booking date and time, arresting agency, charges as listed at booking (which may differ from charges later filed by the prosecutor), bail or bond amount set at initial hearing, and a booking photo. The charges on a booking record reflect what law enforcement alleged at the moment of arrest — they are not a finding of guilt.
Circuit Court docket entry (court-side). Once the prosecutor files charges, a case number is assigned and the Brown County Circuit Court docket opens. This is what you see in Indiana MyCase and on the Indiana Judicial Branch: Brown County page. Court-side fields include: case number (formatted as 07C01-YYMM-XXXX for Brown County), charges as formally filed, hearing dates and outcomes, attorney of record (public defender or private counsel), and — critically — the disposition.
The disposition is the official outcome of the case. It tells you what actually happened: guilty plea, conviction after trial, dismissal, acquittal, or diversion. Dispositions appear in the docket as a separate entry, usually after the final hearing. A case with no disposition entry is still pending. A dismissed case shows “Dismissed” with the date. An acquittal shows “Not Guilty.” These distinctions matter enormously for expungement eligibility, which is covered in the next section.
Docket entries also show whether a case was transferred to the Indiana Department of Correction for a state sentence, or whether the person served time locally at the Brown County Courthouse-area jail. The Brown County Courthouse houses the Circuit Court; records requests for certified copies of court documents go to the Clerk’s Office there, reachable at (812) 988-5510.
One gap to know: if an arrest never produced a court filing — charges were declined by the prosecutor — the booking record exists at the Sheriff’s Department but no case number was ever assigned. MyCase will show nothing. You’d need to contact the Brown County Sheriff’s Office directly at (812) 988-6655 to confirm whether a booking record exists for a specific date and name.
How to expunge an arrest record in Brown County
Petitioning to seal an arrest record in Brown County is a routine legal procedure governed by Ind. Code § 35-38-9 (Indiana “Second Chance Law”) — the same statute that covers everything from a no-charges arrest to a serious felony conviction. The waiting period and eligibility criteria depend on what happened in the case.
Arrests with no conviction. If you were arrested but never charged, or if the case was dismissed or resulted in an acquittal, you may petition to expunge the arrest record one year after the arrest date. Dismissals and acquittals are expunged automatically under the statute — the order takes effect no sooner than 60 days after it’s entered. You don’t need to wait for the automatic process; you can also file a petition proactively after the one-year mark.
Misdemeanor convictions. A misdemeanor conviction becomes eligible for expungement five years after the conviction date, provided you have no other pending criminal charges and meet the statute’s clean-record requirements. The court must grant the petition if you meet the criteria — it is not discretionary.
Class D / Level 6 felony convictions. The waiting period is eight years from the conviction date. Like misdemeanors, the court must grant the petition if eligibility requirements are met.
More serious felonies. The court may expunge after the later of eight years from conviction or three years from completing the sentence. The most serious felonies — and those involving sex offenses, violent crimes, or official misconduct — require the prosecutor’s written consent and are subject to a ten-year or longer window. Sex offenses, violent offenses, and official-misconduct convictions are excluded from expungement entirely under the statute.
Where to file in Brown County. File a verified petition in the Brown County Circuit Court — the court where the conviction occurred, or the court of arrest for non-conviction records. Indiana requires that all petitions in a given county be filed together in a single petition. You effectively have one expungement petition per lifetime, so timing matters. Confirm the current filing fee and any indigency-waiver process with the Clerk at the Brown County Courthouse by calling (812) 988-5510.
Self-petition vs. attorney-assisted. Indiana allows self-represented petitions. The Indiana Judicial Branch’s Brown County Circuit Court filing page has information on how to file a case. For complex cases — multiple convictions, serious felonies requiring prosecutor consent, or cases spanning multiple counties — an attorney can help you avoid the one-petition limit. Find a licensed Indiana attorney through the Indiana Roll of Attorneys, or contact the Indiana Public Defender Council for referral resources.
What remains visible after expungement. Law enforcement agencies retain access to expunged records. The public — including background-check databases that pull from public court records — will no longer see the record in MyCase or through standard APRA requests. Confirm the current statute text or ask the Brown County Clerk before filing; the Second Chance Law has been amended since its original enactment.
| Resource | What it confirms | What it cannot confirm | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana MyCase | Court filings, charges, dispositions, attorney of record for Brown County Circuit Court cases | Arrests that never produced a court filing; pre-portal paper records | Search by name or case number; free, no account needed |
| Brown County Sheriff’s Department | Booking records, booking photos, arrests that did not result in charges | Court dispositions; IDOC state-prison records | Call (812) 988-6655 weekdays 8 a.m.–4 p.m., or mail request to P.O. Box 95, Nashville, IN 47448 |
| Indiana Judicial Branch: Brown County | Circuit Court contact details, docket access, e-filing information | Sheriff booking records; IDOC records | Call Brown County Courthouse at (812) 988-5510 for Clerk assistance |
| Indiana Department of Correction offender search | Individuals currently or previously in IDOC state custody | Local jail holds; cases that never resulted in a state sentence | Search by name on the IDOC offender lookup tool |
| Brown County Jail | Current jail population, visitation rules, commissary information | Historical booking records; court dispositions | Call (812) 988-6655 for current custody status questions |
- Brown County Sheriff’s Department — official records page, booking information, admin contact
- Brown County Law Enforcement Center — facility address and in-person records access
- Brown County Jail — jail location (55 State Road 46 East, Nashville, IN 47448), custody information
- Indiana Judicial Branch: Brown County — Circuit Court contact, docket access, e-filing guidance
- Indiana MyCase — statewide public court records portal
- Brown County Circuit Court filing information — expungement petition filing, Clerk procedures
- Indiana Department of Correction offender search — state-custody records
- Indiana Roll of Attorneys — licensed attorney search for expungement assistance
- Indiana Public Defender Council — public defender referral resources
- Ind. Code § 5-14-3 (Indiana Access to Public Records Act) — open-records framework governing booking record access
- Ind. Code § 35-38-9 (Indiana Second Chance Law) — expungement eligibility, waiting periods, petition requirements
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Frequently asked questions about Brown County arrest records
How do I find out what’s on my Brown County arrest record?
Pull the court side of your record from Indiana MyCase — search your name and look for cases filed in Brown County Circuit Court. That shows charges, hearing history, and any disposition. For the booking side — what the Sheriff’s Department recorded at the time of arrest — call the Brown County Sheriff’s Department at (812) 988-6655 weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and ask for a copy of your booking record. The two systems are separate: MyCase shows court filings, and the Sheriff holds booking entries. If an arrest never produced a court filing, it won’t appear in MyCase at all.
Can a Brown County arrest record be expunged, and how long does it take?
Yes — Indiana’s Second Chance Law (Ind. Code § 35-38-9) covers Brown County records. An arrest with no conviction can be petitioned one year after the arrest date; dismissals and acquittals are expunged automatically (no sooner than 60 days after the order). A misdemeanor conviction requires a five-year wait; a Class D or Level 6 felony requires eight years. More serious felonies have longer windows and may require the prosecutor’s written consent. File a verified petition at the Brown County Circuit Court — call the Clerk at the Brown County Courthouse, (812) 988-5510, to confirm the current filing fee and any indigency-waiver option. Indiana allows only one expungement petition per county in a lifetime, so confirming your eligibility timing before filing is worth the call.
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