Expunctions

Expunctions were created to allow a fresh start to people who were wrongly arrested or charged with a criminal offense. When an expunction is granted, the person may deny that the arrest ever occurred and all government records of the arrest and subsequent prosecution are wholly destroyed. There is only one exception to this rule, if you are under oath in a criminal proceeding, if asked questions regarding the offense, you are required to state that “the matter in question has been expunged.”

After the expunction order is final, the agencies subject to the order may not release, maintain, disseminate, or use the expunged record for any purpose. It is a class B misdemeanor for a government agency to knowingly fail to return or destroy a record ordered expunged.

Texas Code Criminal Procedure Chapter 55 provides four general categories of expunctions:

1. acquittals and pardons;

2. dismissals and no-bills;

3. discretionary expunctions; and

4. identity theft.

There are a limited number of special exceptions that fall outside of Chapter 55 and may be handled in a streamlined fashion. These are mostly restricted to age-related crimes where the person may be able to get an expunction after reaching adulthood.

Non-Disclosures

Nondisclosures are a second chance. They allow persons who receive deferred adjudication or even in some cases final convictions of a crime to steal their records. When a nondisclosure is granted, records are sealed and may only be used for limited purposes. A person who has received an order of nondisclosure is not required to state he has been the subject of the criminal proceeding in any application for employment or licensing and can deny the occurrence of the arrest unless information is being used in a subsequent criminal proceeding.

Non-disclosures have a “best interest of justice” requirement that allows a judge to deny a nondisclosure even if all listed requirements are met.

An order of nondisclosure requires all relevant agencies to seal “criminal history record information.” This includes most information collected by a criminal justice agency about the arrest and charge, but it does not include records not indicating involvement with an arrest, records relating to driver’s license applications, and public judicial proceedings or opinions.

There are two requirements that must be met in any nondisclosure:

1. The person may not have been convicted or placed on deferred for any of a list of restricted offenses, including offenses requiring sex offender registration; offenses involving family violence; aggravated kidnapping; murder or capital murder; injury to a child, elderly, or disabled person; abandoning or endangering a child; violation of a protective order; repeated violation of bond conditions in a family violence case; or stalking. This includes the offense for which the person is seeking nondisclosure.

2. The person must not have been convicted or placed on deferred adjudication for any offense, other than a fine-only traffic offense, from the time of sentencing until any relevant waiting period has passed.