Signed, Sealed, Expunged

Molly Bagshaw remembers the first time she helped someone seal their criminal record. In 2016, she was a student at the University of Houston Law Center, where she worked in the clinic that handled petitions for nondisclosure—the technical term for the process.

“There was a very sweet guy in his 30s, and he was charged with possession of marijuana when he was 14 years old,” says Bagshaw, a criminal defense attorney at Hochglaube & DeBorde in Houston. According to Texas law, juvenile records remain confidential, generally not visible to the public. But Bagshaw’s client was advancing in his profession and required specialized licensing to move to the next level. In the process of applying for the license, his juvenile charge had become visible to a potential employer.

“I was able to help him get that record sealed, and he was able to secure the job and move up,” says Bagshaw. “It meant a lot to him.”

While such a process seals criminal records from the public, they typically remain visible to law enforcement and the federal government—including to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And if that’s a concern, and you’re eligible, then attorneys often recommend attempting to expunge the record.

Expunction, says Bagshaw, “is a lawsuit where we’re suing every person and agency that has a record of your case: your arrest, the police report, the filings—anything that says this person was arrested and charged with a crime. Expunction is a full erasing of that record.”

More and more people are interested in sealing or expunction for a specific reason, says criminal defense attorney Dean Watts, who runs an eponymous firm in Nacogdoches. “Before the internet, it was a lengthy process to find out if someone had a criminal record. Now you can internet-search someone and find it,” he says. “So it’s more important to have ways to get things sealed or permanently off someone’s record.”

He adds: “If a person was arrested, and their case is dismissed, their record is not blank. That arrest needs to be erased.”

The rules can be confusing, and they often differ state to state. Both Bagshaw and Watts have met with potential clients who received misinformation from previous legal representation regarding future eligibility for a nondisclosure or expunction.

“Across the board, if you had a dismissal—meaning your case was dismissed—then you are the best candidate for getting an expunction,” says Bagshaw.

Exceptions to this, adds Watts, include someone with multiple misdemeanors. “The more complicated the arrest is, and the more charges and different outcomes for each charge, the more difficult it can be to either expunge or seal a person’s record,” he says.

Crimes that cannot be expunged in Texas include any conviction resulting in a sex offender registration, as well as murder, domestic violence and human trafficking.

Immigration issues can also complicate matters, says Bagshaw. “If immigration officials are already aware of a situation, just because we get a record expunged later, they might still have that record somewhere.”

The average time it takes to expunge a case is 3-9 months, while costs are anywhere between $1,500 and $5,000, depending on court and attorney’s fees. A petition for nondisclosure is usually quicker and less expensive than expunction.

The benefits are often immeasurable. 

When it comes to criminal convictions, says Bagshaw, people often experience two waves of feelings. “The first wave is going through the case itself and the stress it brings. But even if a case is thrown out, there’s a second wave of continued judgment in the community—because they’re trying to get a job or apply for a loan, and it’s still popping up. When we’re able to expunge it, people are often more grateful than they were when they got the dismissal. It’s another level of relief.”