A Montana PFMA conviction is public information and can appear on an employment or rental background check for the rest of your life. An arrest that did not lead to a conviction is treated differently, and a case that was dismissed after a deferred sentence or expunged should not come back from public Montana sources at all. This page explains the two bodies of law that decide what a check shows. It is part of our Montana Domestic Violence Guide.
Montana Law: Public Versus Confidential
The Montana Criminal Justice Information Act divides records into two kinds. Public criminal justice information includes information of court records and proceedings, convictions, deferred sentences, and deferred prosecutions, plus initial offense reports, initial arrest records (including booking photographs), bail records, and daily jail rosters (MCA § 44-5-103(13)). The Act says there are no restrictions on the dissemination of public criminal justice information, and that it is available from the Department of Justice or the agency that holds the original documents (MCA § 44-5-301).
Confidential criminal justice information covers investigative and intelligence information, fingerprints, records made confidential by law, and anything else not clearly defined as public (MCA § 44-5-103(3)). It goes only to criminal justice agencies, to those authorized by law, and to those a district court authorizes after finding that the demands of individual privacy do not clearly exceed the merits of public disclosure (MCA § 44-5-303(1)). The police investigative file in a PFMA case, including witness statements, falls on this side of the line.
What Shows After Each Outcome
| Outcome | Likely to appear? | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Conviction for PFMA | Yes. Public in Montana, and federal law sets no time limit on reporting convictions. | MCA § 44-5-103(13)(c); 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(5) |
| Deferred sentence, still running | Yes. Deferred sentences are public criminal justice information. | MCA § 44-5-103(13)(c) |
| Deferred sentence, charge dismissed | Not from public Montana records. The records are confidential. | MCA § 46-18-204(2) |
| Arrest or charge with no conviction | Often, for a time. Court and initial arrest records are public, but a background check company generally may not report an arrest record more than 7 years old. | MCA § 44-5-103(13); 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2) |
| Expunged misdemeanor | Not from the agencies ordered to seal or expunge. | MCA § 46-18-1110 |
The table describes what the law makes available. It cannot describe every private database. Companies that collected a record while it was public may hold an outdated copy, which is where the federal rules below come in.
Federal Law: Limits on Background Check Companies
Most employers and landlords do not search courthouse records themselves. They buy a report from a consumer reporting agency, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs that report. Three rules matter most after a PFMA case:
- Arrests age off. Convictions do not. A report may not include records of arrest that are more than 7 years old (or, if longer, until the governing statute of limitations has expired), or other adverse items more than 7 years old "other than records of convictions of crimes" (15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2), (5)).
- Higher-paid jobs are excepted. The 7-year limits do not apply to a report used for employment at an annual salary of $75,000 or more (15 U.S.C. § 1681c(b)(3)).
- Public records must be current. An agency that reports public record information likely to hurt a person's ability to get a job must either notify the person when it reports or maintain strict procedures to make sure the information is complete and up to date (15 U.S.C. § 1681k(a)).
Your Rights When an Employer Runs a Check
An employer may not get a report for employment purposes unless it has made a clear and conspicuous written disclosure, in a document that consists solely of the disclosure, and you have authorized the report in writing (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(2)(A)). Before taking any adverse action based in whole or in part on the report, the employer must give you a copy of the report and a written description of your rights (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(3)(A)).
That copy is your chance to check the report against the actual court record. If it shows a dismissed charge as open, or a deferred sentence that has since been dismissed, the report is out of date. You can dispute it with the company that prepared it, which must then conduct a reasonable reinvestigation free of charge (15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A)).
Arrests Without a Conviction
An acquittal or a dismissal does not make the case invisible. The court file and the initial arrest record remain public information. What Montana does require is that when a person is released without charges, when charges do not result in a conviction, or when a conviction is later invalidated, the state repository return the photographs and fingerprints to the originating agency, which must expunge all copies (MCA § 44-5-202(8)). If you are unsure whether that happened in your case, a lawyer can check.
Changing What a Check Will Find
The record that background checks draw from is set by how the criminal case ends. A dismissal after a deferred sentence makes the records confidential. A one-time petition can expunge a misdemeanor PFMA, though the law gives no presumption in favor of it. Licensed professionals face a separate review, covered in PFMA and professional licenses, and renters should read PFMA and housing. If you are still in the middle of a case, see your job after a PFMA arrest and the overview of a PFMA on your record.
This page explains Montana and federal law in general as of the 2025 Montana Code Annotated. It is not legal advice about your specific case.