Your check is stuck because the county search depends on a court. Most US criminal cases are tried in county courts, so the county search is the core of most employment checks. When a court is slow, down, or needs a clerk to look in person, the whole file waits.
What the county search is
A screening vendor searches the court records for each county where you have lived inside the lookback window. Some counties publish digital records that a vendor can search remotely. Others require a court clerk or a court runner to search in person.
GoodHire says the manual part can take from 3 to 30 days. That range explains most of the gap between a check that finishes in two days and one that takes three weeks.
Why a county search stalls
- The court's public access system is down. HireRight published notices in July 2026 for Ector County, Texas, where public access was unavailable with no ETA, and Lake County, Illinois, where the system had issues after maintenance. Virginia had a statewide criminal backlog.
- The county needs a clerk or runner to search in person.
- Your name is common, so possible matches need checking against date of birth and other identifiers before the record can be reported or cleared.
- Your date of birth has a typo, or an old address is missing, which sends the search to the wrong county or adds counties.
- Court rule changes create backlogs. A Los Angeles Times report in July 2024 described long delays in California county checks after rules changed on searching by date of birth.
Normal versus time to follow up
A county search can take a few days and still be normal. A check that sits on the same component for 10 business days or more is worth raising. Ask which county is pending rather than asking for a general update.
What you can do
Confirm your date of birth and every address in the lookback window. Ask the employer which county is open. Ask the vendor for component-level status, which is more useful than a package-level status.
If the check is with First Advantage, read how long a First Advantage background check takes for the wider timeline.
For employers
A court backlog can hold a hire for weeks, and the candidate may take another offer while it clears. Score and shortlist before the check starts so the delay does not decide the outcome. AI Candidate Evaluation keeps that comparison on record.