Texas Expunction Statute — Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55A Explained

1. Who is entitled to expunction — Subchapter A (arts. 55A.001–55A.006)

Subchapter A is the mandatory list. It applies to anyone placed under a custodial or noncustodial arrest for a felony or misdemeanor (art. 55A.001), and each article below is an entitlement: if the facts fit, the court must order expunction.

• Art. 55A.002 — acquitted by the trial court. Tried for the offense and acquitted, except where the same-criminal-episode bar in art. 55A.151 applies.
• Art. 55A.003 — pardon for actual innocence. Convicted, then pardoned or otherwise granted relief on the basis of actual innocence, where the pardon or order says so on its face.
• Art. 55A.004 — pardon for any other reason. Convicted, then pardoned for a reason other than actual innocence.
• Art. 55A.005 — unlawful carrying of a handgun before September 1, 2021. Convicted under former Penal Code § 46.02(a) for conduct before that date.
• Art. 55A.006 — mistaken identity. Arrested solely because of identifying information that was wrong through a clerical error, or someone else gave your identity to the arresting officer without your consent. This one reaches identifying information in another person's arrest file, not only your own.

Practical reading: the trial-court acquittal and the pardons carry no waiting period. Note what is not here — an acquittal on appeal after a conviction is a discretionary ground under art. 55A.101, not an entitlement.

2. Released without a conviction — Subchapter B (arts. 55A.051–55A.054)

Subchapter B is where most expunctions live: the arrest that never became a conviction. Art. 55A.051 is the gateway, and all three of its conditions must be met before any article in the subchapter applies:

1. the person has been released;
2. the charge, if any, has not resulted in a final conviction and is no longer pending; and
3. there was no court-ordered community supervision under Chapter 42A for the offense, other than for a Class C misdemeanor.

Condition (3) is the one families misread. Deferred adjudication is community supervision under Chapter 42A, so a dismissed deferred is not expungeable — it is a nondisclosure case under Government Code § 411.072, § 411.0725 or, for a first DWI, § 411.0726. The Class C exception is real: a Class C deferred disposition that was dismissed can still be expunged.

Once through the gateway, the article depends on what happened to the charge:

• Art. 55A.052 — no indictment or information was ever presented. Entitled after the waiting period runs from the date of arrest: 180 days for a Class C misdemeanor, one year for a Class A or B misdemeanor, three years for a felony (or a felony charge arising from the same transaction) — or at any time if the prosecutor certifies that the records are not needed for any investigation or prosecution. Whether a limitations period exists or has run does not matter (art. 55A.052(b)).
• Art. 55A.053 — the charge was presented, then dismissed or quashed. Entitled only if the court finds the dismissal or quashing was because the person completed a veterans treatment court program, a mental health court program, or a pretrial intervention program; because the charge rested on mistake, false information or a similar reason showing no probable cause at the time of dismissal; or because the indictment or information was void. The veterans-court and mental-health-court routes can each be used once, with an affidavit saying so (arts. 55A.053(b)–(c)).
• Art. 55A.054 — limitations expired. Entitled once prosecution is no longer possible because the limitations period has run, whatever the reason for the dismissal.

Practical reading: a plain "dismissed for insufficient evidence" does not fit art. 55A.053. Those cases wait for limitations under art. 55A.054 — two years for most misdemeanors, three years or longer for felonies under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 12.

3. Discretionary expunction — Subchapter C (art. 55A.101)

Here the court may expunge rather than must. Two situations qualify (art. 55A.101(a)):

• the person was tried, convicted, and then acquitted by the Court of Criminal Appeals or, once the period for discretionary review has expired, by a court of appeals; or
• the prosecuting office authorized to prosecute the offense recommends expunction before the person is tried, whether or not a charge has been presented.

A justice court or municipal court of record may use this article only for offenses punishable by fine only (art. 55A.101(b)). The prosecutor-recommendation route is the practical one: it lets a county attorney or district attorney clear an arrest they have decided not to pursue without waiting for limitations.

4. When expunction is barred — Subchapter D (arts. 55A.151–55A.154)

• Art. 55A.151 — same criminal episode. An acquitted charge cannot be expunged if it arose out of a criminal episode (Penal Code § 3.01) in which the person was convicted of, or still faces prosecution for, another offense.
• Art. 55A.152 — driver's-license records. Records of a license suspension or revocation are not expunged under this chapter except as Transportation Code §§ 524.015 and 724.048 allow.
• Art. 55A.153 — arrest on a supervision-violation warrant. An arrest made under a warrant issued under art. 42A.751(b) cannot be expunged.
• Art. 55A.154 — absconding. A person who intentionally or knowingly absconds from the jurisdiction after release under Chapter 17 loses the art. 55A.052(a)(1)–(3) waiting-period routes and the art. 55A.054 limitations route for that arrest.

There is no "pattern of arrests" exception and no prior-felony look-back anywhere in the chapter. Separate arrests are judged separately; the Texas Supreme Court confirmed arrest-by-arrest analysis under the former chapter in State v. T.S.N., 547 S.W.3d 617 (Tex. 2018).

5. How the order is entered — Subchapters E and F (arts. 55A.201–55A.258)

Automatic entry (Subchapter E). After a trial-court acquittal the order is entered within 30 days at the request of the acquitted person or the State, by the trial court or a district court in the county; the trial court must tell the acquitted person about the right (art. 55A.201). The same 30-day mechanism applies after an actual-innocence pardon (art. 55A.202) and, with the State's consent, after a veterans-court or mental-health-court dismissal — with no fee (art. 55A.203). The State prepares those orders (art. 55A.204).

Petition (Subchapter F). Everyone else files an ex parte petition:

• Where — art. 55A.251. A district court in the county of arrest or the county where the offense was alleged. For fine-only offenses the petition may go to a justice court or municipal court of record in the same county (art. 55A.252).
• What it must contain — art. 55A.253. Verified, with the person's full name, sex, race, date of birth, driver's license number, social security number and address at arrest; the offense charged and its alleged date; the arrest date, county and municipality; the arresting agency; the case number and court; and a list — with physical and e-mail addresses — of every law-enforcement agency, jail, magistrate, court, prosecutor, correctional facility, state and federal records depository, and private data vendor believed to hold the records. Each state or local agency is listed once. The district clerk keeps a list of agencies on its website (art. 55A.253(c)).
• Hearing — art. 55A.254. Set no earlier than the 30th day after filing, with the petition and notice sent to every listed entity by certified mail or secure electronic means; agencies may appear through their usual counsel; the clerk charges $25 per entity that cannot take electronic notice. There is no separate "articulable basis" standard for objections — the petitioner proves entitlement, and if the court finds it, the court must enter the order (art. 55A.255).
• Mistaken identity — art. 55A.256. Not a petition: a verified application with fingerprints goes to the felony prosecutor, who verifies it, attaches the agency list and asks the district court to enter the order without a hearing.
• Others who may file. The Department of Public Safety may petition on a person's behalf (art. 55A.257); a close relative may petition for a deceased person who would have been entitled (art. 55A.258).

6. The order and what happens next — Subchapters G, H and I (arts. 55A.301–55A.402)

• Contents — art. 55A.301. The order carries the identifying information, the offense, the arrest date, the case number and court, and the DPS incident number, and requires any agency that sent records to a federal depository to ask for them back.
• Retention — art. 55A.302. The court may let the investigating agency and prosecutor keep records while limitations run and there is reasonable cause to proceed, or, after an acquittal, when the records are needed for another prosecution or a civil case. Records expunged on a waiting-period route are retained by those two offices by default.
• Appeal — art. 55A.303. The person or any protesting agency may appeal as in other civil cases.
• Notice — arts. 55A.351–55A.352. When the order is final the clerk sends it to DPS's Crime Records Service, the Office of Court Administration and every listed entity; DPS notifies the federal depositories and any private vendor that buys its criminal-history data.
• Disposition — arts. 55A.353–55A.357. Each entity returns its records to the court or, where removal is impracticable, obliterates the identifying portions, and deletes its index references. In mistaken-identity cases the identifying information is obliterated and replaced, not returned. The court may hand returned records to the person (except after an acquittal or mistaken identity); the clerk seals its own file and destroys it on the first anniversary of the order, keeping only the order itself, confidentially. Financial records of the case may be kept with identities obliterated. The statute sets no fixed number of days for agencies to comply.
• Effect — art. 55A.401. Once final, any release or use of the expunged records is prohibited; the person may deny the arrest and the order — except that, when questioned under oath in a criminal proceeding, the only permitted answer is that the matter has been expunged.
• Offense — art. 55A.402. Knowingly using expunged records, or knowingly failing to return or obliterate them, is a Class B misdemeanor.

7. Notice of the right — Subchapter J (art. 55A.451)

Whoever releases or discharges an arrested person must hand over a written explanation of these rights and a copy of the chapter. Few people keep it; the right exists whether or not the notice was given.

8. Crosswalk — former article 55.01 to Chapter 55A

Chapter 55A was added by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., ch. 765 (H.B. 4504), effective January 1, 2025, as a nonsubstantive revision of former Chapter 55. Older orders, petitions and case law cite the former numbering; this table maps it.