Mississippi: Adult Conviction Expungement and Record-Sealing Eligibility

Requirements one by one

Relief name and legal effect

Mississippi calls the remedy expunction. Section 99-19-71 removes the
conviction from all public records and restores the person, in contemplation of
law, to the status occupied before the arrest or indictment. It also protects
the person from a perjury or false-statement charge for failing to acknowledge
the expunged arrest, indictment, or conviction in most inquiries.

That effect is not destruction or invisibility to everyone. The statute keeps
specified nonpublic records and expressly permits an employer to ask whether
an expunction order was entered.

Automatic or clean-slate relief

General conviction expunction is not automatic. Both the misdemeanor and
felony provisions say the person may petition the court of conviction. The
2026 bills proposing automatic conviction expunction did not become law.

Convictions eligible by petition

A first offender may petition to expunge a misdemeanor that is not a traffic
violation. The statute does not turn that route into a general multiple-
misdemeanor remedy; first-offender status remains part of the eligibility text.

The felony route is broader by offense type but usable only once. A person may
petition for one felony conviction after the five-year completion clock and
payment conditions, unless the felony appears in the exclusion list. When
multiple convictions arose from a common nucleus of operative facts, the court
may treat them as the one conviction and one felony expunction.

Excluded offenses and statuses

The excluded felony categories are a crime of violence under § 97-3-2,
first-degree arson, controlled-substance trafficking, a third or subsequent
DUI, felon in possession of a firearm, failure to register as a sex offender,
voyeurism, witness intimidation, abuse or neglect or exploitation of a
vulnerable person, and embezzlement under §§ 97-11-25 or 97-23-19.

Section 99-19-71 also makes a public official ineligible to expunge any
conviction related to official duties.

Waiting period and when it starts

The misdemeanor subsection states no numeric waiting period. It says a first
offender convicted of a nontraffic misdemeanor may petition the court of
conviction.

The felony clock is five years after successful completion of all terms and
conditions of the sentence. It is not measured from arrest, conviction, or
release alone.

Sentence, restitution, and new-record conditions

For felony relief, the statute separately requires successful completion of all
sentence terms and payment of every criminal fine and court cost imposed in the
sentence. The court must also find rehabilitation.

The general felony text does not add a separate conviction-free waiting period
or make a pending charge an express automatic bar. Those facts may still bear
on whether the court finds the applicant rehabilitated, but they should not be
presented as extra statutory eligibility clauses.

Petition process and decision standard

The petition goes to the justice, county, circuit, or municipal court where the
conviction occurred. Section 99-19-72 imposes a $150 filing fee. Before any
hearing, the petitioner gives the district attorney ten days' written notice.

Under § 99-19-71(2)(b), the court may grant the petition only if it determines,
on the record or in writing, that the applicant is rehabilitated from the
offense. If it denies the petition, its findings must be specific rather than
general.

Who can still see or ask about the record

Under § 99-19-71(3), the Mississippi Criminal Information Center retains a
nonpublic record solely to determine first-offender status in a later
proceeding. The district attorney's office may retain a nonpublic record for
law-enforcement purposes.

An employer may ask a prospective employee whether an expunction order was
entered. A prospective juror, if requested, must advise the court in camera of
the conviction and expunction; the court then advises the attorneys before
jury selection.

What trips people up

The felony rule is not limited to a short closed list anymore. Current
§ 99-19-71 uses a broad one-felony rule followed by an exclusion list. Older
descriptions that list only bad checks, drug possession, false pretenses,
larceny, malicious mischief, and shoplifting reflect pre-2019 text.

Five years starts after every sentence condition is successfully completed.
Finishing incarceration does not start the clock if probation, another sentence
condition, fines, or court costs remain unfinished.

An employer may ask about the order even though the underlying conviction may
ordinarily be omitted. The statute treats those as different questions.

Common questions

Can more than one felony be expunged? The statute permits one felony
expunction, but the court may treat convictions arising from a common nucleus
of operative facts as the one conviction.

Must a first-offender misdemeanor wait five years? No five-year period is
stated for the misdemeanor route. The five-year clock is in the felony
subsection.

Is the record gone from every government system? No. MCIC and the district
attorney may retain the specific nonpublic records described by § 99-19-71.

Statutes and sources

• Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-71 — misdemeanor and felony eligibility, exclusions,
  five-year felony clock, notice, rehabilitation finding, effect, retained
  records, employer question, juror disclosure, and public-official exclusion.
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UniCourt/cic-code-ms/master/transforms/ms/ocms/r78/gov.ms.code.title.99.html
  (official-code release 78 baseline accessed 2026-07-19; post-release bill sweep found no enacted amendment)
• Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-72 — $150 petition filing fee and distribution.
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UniCourt/cic-code-ms/master/transforms/ms/ocms/r78/gov.ms.code.title.99.html
  (accessed 2026-07-19)