Mississippi Expungement of Criminal Records

 

Being arrested and charged in the state of Mississippi – whether or not you are ultimately convicted of a crime – means that you will be given a criminal record. This record is something that will follow you around for the rest of your life, and can make it quite difficult to do things that previously you probably took for granted.

 

Simple tasks like getting a job, finding housing, applying for credit or a loan, and obtaining licenses from professional organizations will now be much more difficult – if not downright impossible.

 

Why? Because if you have a criminal record, every time anyone does a background check on you the details of your charges show up. In some cases, simply having a criminal record may disqualify you and remove you from contention. But even in situations where your criminal record doesn’t bar you outright, once the person sees that you have a criminal record, they will be that much less likely to choose you – especially over another person who doesn’t have a record.

 

Luckily, Mississippi is one of the states that grants the privilege of expungement to those citizens who meet the requirements. What’s expungement? It’s a legal process created to let certain people who have committed certain crimes have those crimes erased from their criminal record so that no law enforcement agency and no one in the public will be able to access them. Only specific government agencies will be granted access, and only then in certain circumstances outlined by law. After your crime is expunged, you can legally tell people that the arrest and offense never occurred. You can even make this declaration in a court of law.

 

Because expungement is such a powerful tool, Mississippi does not consider it to be a right for all citizens, but rather a privilege that may be granted or denied at the court’s discretion. There are, however, general guidelines limiting who may even apply for expungement in the first place, and how the process works for different types of individuals.

 

For example, Mississippi treats juvenile offenders differently than adults. A simple order from the youth court can have juvenile records destroyed, and crimes eligible for expungement include both drug offense records where the matter was dismissed after the offender completed probation, and conviction records for first-time misdemeanor offenses. It should be noted, though, that Mississippi Law 99-19-71 states that a person’s records can be kept in the event that they are needed for determining purposes in subsequent proceeding under these circumstances.

 

In relation to juveniles, the following types of records may be erased:

 

• Indictment records
• Trial records
• Arrest records
• Sentencing records
• Disposition records

 

Mississippi Law 43-21-265 forbids certain juvenile medical or mental health examination records from being expunged, however, and there is no expungement allowed for any implied consent violation, or for records containing sexual offenses that require dissemination.

 

Expungement Eligible Cases in Mississippi

 

The state of Mississippi has strict standards regarding which cases may apply for expungement. It is possible for juvenile release and arrest cases where there was no disposition, the charges were dropped, or which have been dismissed to be expunged, but in those cases, the juvenile must have no charges pending.

 

For adults, it is also possible to expunge first-time misdemeanor offenses (excluding traffic violations), and also any offenses that mirror the circumstances for juvenile described above. Adults, however, are excluded from expungement if these cases also include an offense relating to selling, bartering, transferring, manufacturing, distributing, or dispensing a controlled substance, or possession with the intent to sell, barter, distribute, transfer, manufacture, or dispense a controlled substance as outlined under Section 41-29-139.

 

Three exclusions to these circumstances exist:

 

• If the charge that is made involves less than an ounce of marijuana
• If the offense involves possessing more than a kilogram of marijuana
• If the offense falls under Mississippi Implied Consent Law 99-19-71

 

Other specific circumstances that allow for eligibility include:

 

• Anyone cited for a misdemeanor who then had all charges dismissed, or who was not formally charge within 12 months of the arrest
• Anyone who served either a sentence or a probation period and pled guilty in the six-month period leading up to March 31, 1983

 

How does expungement petitioning work in Mississippi?

 

If you are a juvenile, you have to petition the court with the proper jurisdiction. If your charges were dismissed or dropped, you must submit your petition to the court that handled your case.

 

For any other circumstances, individuals are required to wait the amount of time that has been designated before petitioning the court.