Any Crime Is Potentially Eligible for Expungement
Video Transcribed: What crimes can be expunged in Oklahoma? I’m an attorney for Expungements in Tulsa, James Wirth, and we’re talking about what can be expunged, what can not be expunged. And as far as what expungeable crimes in Oklahoma, any crime is potentially eligible for expungement, depending on the circumstances. There is no crime where it’s set out that it can never be expunged off of your record.
However, there is a list of crimes that cannot be expunged under certain circumstances. For instance, if you have one felony conviction and you’re looking to get that conviction expunged, it cannot be a violent crime. It cannot be on the violent crime list, which lists a lot of the serious crimes that would be, let’s see, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon or deadly weapon.
Assault and battery with a dangerous deadly weapon or likely to produce death or great bodily harm, aggravated assault and battery on a police officer, poisoned with intent to kill, shooting with tend to kill, assault with intent to kill, assault with intent to commit a felony, assaults with dangerous weapons while master disguise, murder, manslaughter in the first degree, second degree, kidnapping, maiming, robbery in the first degree, second degree, armed robbery.
So there’s a list of these violent offenses. You can find them in the statute, it’s Title 57, section 571. And if it is a violent crime, you have one felony conviction. That is not eligible to be expunged, except there’s an exception to that.
And this exception was not always available, but through a recent change in the last few years, it is. And that is under Title 22, section 18, which involves the categories for expungement. There’s a subsection 4 now that provides that if the person has received a full pardon by the governor for the crime for which the person was sentenced, they’re eligible. So, although you cannot get a violent crime expunged, if you have a conviction, normally, this now allows you to do so so long as you get a pardon first.
Similarly, if you have two felony convictions, none of those can be 85% crimes or crimes that require sex offender registration, or you’re not eligible for expungement, no matter how much time has gone by, except, the same except here, subsection 4, if you obtain a pardon for those offenses, then it is. So, sometimes, you have to get a pardon before you can get those expunged, but there’s no crime where you can never get an expungement on it.
However, there is a bit of a donut hole, and that is if you have a violent crime, which you received a deferred sentence. Then upon successful completion of that deferred sentence, the court case is expunged, but the arrest record is not.
So, if someone does a more comprehensive background check, pulls your OSBI, it’ll show that you were arrested for that offense, that horrible offense, violent offense, but that the charges were dismissed.
And that kind of falls within a donut hole because you have the partial expungement if you don’t have the complete expungement. Meanwhile, you can’t fall under section 4 for a pardon because you can’t get a pardon on something that’s not a conviction.
So, there is a bit of a donut hole there, but there is no specific crime where you can never get it expunged. It just means that you may need a pardon ahead of time before you get that. So, as long as you get the pardon, then you’re eligible for the expungement.
If you’ve got questions about your circumstances, if you’re eligible for expungement, how that process works, the cost, how long it takes, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney privately, confidentially about that. To get that scheduled with somebody in my office, you can go online to makelaweasy.com.
