Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Court Case Numbers

The first two numbers are the year the case was filed, the letter is whether it is a felony (F) or misdemeanor (M) and last set of numbers are the case number. If you are calling the clerk's office or are trying to find out about the case you refer to the entire number 93M40757.

Good luck.

Elena Condes

Re: Court Case Numbers

If the numbers referred to what crime had been committed then everyone charged with a given offense in that area in the same year would have the same case number -- and assigning case numbers to people charged with multiple crimes would be impossible. The last five numbers are assigned in sequence to make sure each case has a unique number, and they reveal nothing about the case itself.

I don't have much experience with Sacramento cases, but in most counties the letter indicates which courthouse the case is in. Since most of the more populous counties have quite a few courthouses, this is often useful information to have. Some counties use a 2-letter code in which one of the letters is indeed M for misdemeanor, F for felony, I for infraction, etc., but when a large county uses only a single letter it most likely refers to the location instead.