Certificate of Disposition

A New York Certificate of Disposition is filed in your name with your date of birth if you have been a defendant in a criminal case in the New York Criminal Court. A Certificate of Disposition has an official criminal court heading at the top and case information on the right side of the document. It states the date and time of your court case with the case number. It tells when you were arrested and the date the certificate was filed with the criminal court of New York.

Purpose

Beneath the case information is a statement of exoneration of bail witnessed by the criminal court clerk. A Certificate of Disposition may be obtained from the clerk of the court of jurisdiction soon after the hearing. The fee for obtaining a Certificate of Disposition is $10. Law offices charge $100 plus the $10 fee to obtain the certificate for you. The certificate enables you to regain your collateral you posted as a surety bond prior to your court appearance.

No Certificate of Disposition is Available

It usually takes a week for the court to process your case information and create a Certificate of Disposition, but in some cases it may take a little longer. If your case was dismissed, never heard, or charges were dropped against you, you may simply need to check the criminal court or FBI criminal case history to be sure no case was recorded in your name.

343 Letter

If your case was dismissed, you may be able to get a 343 letter, even if you were brought to central booking, because the district attorney declined to prosecute your case. You can have a 343 Letter drafted on your behalf which states that your arrest was never docketed. No Certificate of Disposition will ever be available in cases where 343 letters may be issued or no criminal case was ever documented.