What Convictions Can Never Be Expunged in Indiana?

Indiana’s expungement statute is one of the more generous in the country. Misdemeanors, Level 6 felonies, and even many serious felonies can be expunged or sealed once the waiting period has run. But the law draws hard lines around certain offenses, and no amount of time, good behavior, or prosecutor cooperation will move them. Here is which Indiana convictions can never be expunged, and the less obvious rule that a single disqualifying conviction can block relief for everything else on your record.

Indiana Expungement Statute

Indiana Code 35-38-9 sorts records into five categories. Arrests that never led to a conviction fall under section 1. Misdemeanors (including Level 6 felonies reduced to misdemeanors) fall under section 2, with a five-year waiting period. Level 6 felonies that did not involve bodily injury fall under section 3, with an eight-year wait. More serious felonies fall under sections 4 and 5, with waits of eight to ten years, and section 5 requires the prosecutor's written consent. Sections 2 and 3 seal the record. Sections 4 and 5 leave the record public but mark it as expunged, and the anti-discrimination protections of the statute still apply.

Each of those sections also names the people who may not use it. Those exclusions are where permanent ineligibility comes from.

Convictions That Cannot be Expunged

Under Indiana Code 35-38-9-3(b), 35-38-9-4(b), and 35-38-9-5(b), the following convictions are excluded from every felony expungement category:

• Homicide offenses, or an attempt, under Indiana Code 35-42-1. This includes murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, and feticide.
• Human and sexual trafficking offenses, or an attempt, under Indiana Code 35-42-3.5.
• Sex crimes, or an attempt, under Indiana Code 35-42-4. This chapter includes rape, child molesting, child seduction, sexual battery, sexual misconduct with a minor, vicarious sexual gratification, child exploitation, possession of child pornography, and child solicitation.
• Any felony that resulted in the death of another person, regardless of which statute it was charged under. A Level 5 felony OWI causing death, for example, is not a homicide offense under chapter 35-42-1, but it still cannot be expunged.
• Official misconduct under Indiana Code 35-44.1-1-1, if the person was an elected official or an elected or appointed judicial officer at the time. A non-elected public employee convicted of official misconduct can still seek relief, but only under section 5, which requires prosecutor consent.
• Unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon under Indiana Code 35-47-4-5. This exclusion applies to sections 4 and 5. It does not apply to section 3, but a serious violent felon conviction is a Level 4 felony, so section 3 would never apply anyway.

There is one more category that works differently. A person who is a sex or violent offender as defined in Indiana Code 11-8-8-5 cannot expunge any conviction at all, misdemeanor or felony. That definition is broad. It covers anyone required to register as a sex or violent offender in Indiana, which sweeps in not just sex crimes but also murder, voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and criminal confinement of a child, among others. Note that the statute keys on the person's status as an offender, not on the specific offense being expunged. In Burton v. State (2017), the Court of Appeals held that a registered offender could not expunge unrelated theft and fraud convictions because the statute excludes the offender, not the offense.

Two or More Felonies Involving Deadly Weapons

A person convicted of two or more felonies involving the unlawful use of a deadly weapon, committed in separate episodes of criminal conduct, is barred from expunging any conviction. This is the only exclusion, apart from sex or violent offender status, that reaches misdemeanors as well as felonies. Two armed robberies committed on different days would trigger it. Two counts arising from the same incident would not, because they were part of a single episode.

Perjury: The Narrow Trap

Perjury under Indiana Code 35-44.1-2-1 is not permanently barred, but the statute produces an odd result. Section 3, the Level 6 felony category, excludes perjury. Sections 4 and 5 do not. Since perjury is a Level 6 felony, a perjury conviction cannot be expunged under the only section that would normally cover it. Unless the court entered the conviction as a misdemeanor under Indiana Code 35-50-2-7, which would make section 2 available, a perjury conviction effectively stays on your record.

Why your Whole Record Matters

The most important thing to understand is that eligibility is evaluated against your entire criminal history, not just the conviction you want cleared. If you have one disqualifying conviction, the statute treats you as an ineligible person for every felony on your record. A person with an old Level 6 theft conviction and a later child molesting conviction cannot expunge the theft. A person convicted of a felony that resulted in a death cannot expunge a misdemeanor OWI from a decade earlier under section 3, 4, or 5, though a misdemeanor may still be reachable under section 2 unless one of the section 2 exclusions applies.

The reverse is also true. A person with no disqualifying conviction and several eligible ones can expunge all of them but must do so in one lifetime petition. Under Indiana Code 35-38-9-9(i), you get one expungement petition in your life, and petitions filed in multiple counties count as one only if they are filed within the same 365-day window. Leaving a conviction off by mistake can cost you the chance to ever clear it, so it is worth having an attorney pull your complete history before filing.

Domestic Battery and Firearms

A domestic battery conviction can be expunged. But under Indiana Code 35-38-9-6(f), expunging a crime of domestic violence does not restore the right to possess a firearm. That right can only be restored through the separate process in Indiana Code 35-47-4-7. People who assume expungement fixes the gun problem are often surprised.

Call Mo Today

If your conviction falls into a permanently excluded category, expungement is off the table, but other avenues may exist. A pardon from the governor is rare but possible. A post-conviction relief petition can attack the conviction itself if there was a constitutional or legal error in the original case. And if the conviction that disqualifies you is one you believe was wrongly entered, vacating it on appeal or through post-conviction proceedings would remove the bar and reopen expungement for the rest of your record.

Call (347) 889-4944 or schedule a consultation to get started!