The second step is to get printed (i.e., fingerprinted). At the booking center.
What does it mean?
Getting fingerprinted means that they take your prints digitally or using ink.
Where are they stored
Your prints are then stored in a searchable computer database and/or other facility for use by local, state, or national law enforcement agencies.
What are they used for
The prints in the database are used to identify criminals and for background checks, including those done in cases where people like you apply for ARD.
How to do it?
You don’t. The police or other qualified people at authorized facilities (e.g., the booking center) take your prints.
What you do is wait. In most ARD-eligible cases, you will get a fingerprint order in the mail or from a judge (if you have not already been printed) along with an information sheet (which has information on how they do things in Adams County).
Then you need to do what the order and the sheet tell you to do.
Follow the order
Get it first.
You get a fingerprint order the same way you get the charges. For example, if the charges come by mail, so will the fingerprint order. If you get the charges at a preliminary arraignment, you will get the order there as well.
You will not get a fingerprint order at all, though, if you are arrested, and the police do the fingerprinting before you have your preliminary arraignment. This approach is unusual in ARD-eligible cases, but possible.
Then follow it.
The fingerprint order will tell you that you need to get your fingerprints done. It will tell you when to get printed. It will tell you where. It will also tell you to present the order at the time you are printed. So you need to bring it with you. Once you have been printed, you will be given a signed copy of the order. Hold onto that, just in case.
To SRL clients
Let us know if you have your prints done when we meet. If you don’t have them done, you can text us about it.
If you can’t have your prints done by the date on the fingerprint order, again, let us know. We can ask for it to be moved.
Get the instructions.
Get them first.
The instruction sheet should come with the fingerprint order.
Then follow them.
The sheet is like a list of frequently asked questions with answers to those questions.
The sheet will tell you the hours of operation of the Adams Correctional Complex Central Booking Center, where they do the fingerprints. It will give you directions for entering the facility, which is helpful, because it’s a big place! It will also tell you who is and who is not allowed to go into the facility.
Heads up
You may want to call ahead. Just because the sheet gives you a schedule does not make the booking center will keep it for any number of reasons (e.g., a security problem). And if there is a problem, they are not going to give you advance notice!
To SRL clients
The sheet does not say anything about attorneys. But we can tell you specifically: Attorneys are not allowed to go in with you. So when they say only you are allowed in, they mean it.
In any case, we do not accompany people for fingerprinting as part of standard services.
Who says you have to do it?
The legislature says that fingerprinting is mandatory for a felony, misdemeanor, and certain summary offenses.
The state courts also require that a fingerprint order be attached to the summons in all cases in which a defendant has not yet been fingerprinted.
The DA and the local court do not say anywhere in writing that fingerprints need to be done to get ARD. But they do have requirements related to prior criminal history, and the prints are used to check that (as explained above).
But what if you say you have no priors?
The DA won’t take your word for it. He will want to verify it, and the Court expects that he will. That’s what the fingerprints are for. Your name and date of birth are not good enough. Some people lie about those. But it’s hard to lie about fingerprints.
What if you don’t?
If you don’t get fingerprinted, you don’t get ARD. You have to get your prints done if you want ARD.
Will they make an exception in your case? Possibly. As to the timing. Particularly if you have a good explanation for not having them done by the date of your admission. But don’t count on it.
Printing after admission
As discussed above, the DA won’t take your word for it (i.e., that you have no priors). But he may in some cases agree to verify your word after admission to ARD. The Court will normally go along with whatever the DA wants.
Comments
Reserved.
Resources
18 Pa.C.S.A. § 9112 (“Mandatory fingerprinting”)
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