Memphis Expungement Lawyer | Clearing a Shelby County Record

An expungement removes a charge from your public criminal record. In Tennessee the process runs through the court where the case started, under Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-32-106 to -108, and it is not automatic — even a dismissed charge stays visible on a background check until someone files the petition.

Brooks Law Firm files expungements in Shelby County and across West Tennessee. Call the office at (901) 324-5000 or call or text 901-412-2973.

What can be expunged

• Dismissed charges, nolle prosequi, no true bill, and not guilty verdicts. Eligible, and there is no clerk fee for the expungement itself.
• Arrests that never resulted in a charge. Eligible.
• Completed diversion — judicial or pretrial. Eligible on successful completion, subject to a clerk fee.
• Certain convictions under § 40-32-107, available five years after the sentence is fully served. Eligibility is narrow: the offense has to be on the statutory list, all costs, fines, and restitution must be paid, and there are strict limits on how many charges can be cleared.

What cannot

A DUI conviction cannot be expunged in Tennessee. Neither can most violent offenses, sexual offenses, or offenses requiring registration. If your DUI was dismissed or reduced below DUI, that is a different situation and the record can be cleared — which is one of the reasons how a DUI case ends matters so much. See Memphis DUI defense.

DUI is one of a list of exclusions that also includes domestic assault (§ 39-13-111). For an excluded conviction the only route is a governor’s pardon. Since a 2026 amendment (Pub. Ch. 719), a pardoned conviction can be expunged unless it is one of a short list of the most serious violent and sexual offenses, and the petition needs a favorable Board of Parole vote as well as the pardon (§ 40-32-107(d)). A domestic assault charge that was dismissed, including one dismissed after judicial diversion, can still be expunged under § 40-32-106, and so can a dismissed DUI. More on domestic assault charges.

The two problems that stop most petitions

“Dismissed with costs.” If your disposition reads dismissed with costs, or retired, there are unpaid court costs sitting on the file and the expungement will not go through until they are resolved. Where those costs are old enough, they may be time-barred and subject to a motion to waive them. That motion is often the actual work in an expungement case.

Missing dispositions. A charge with no disposition entered sits on your TBI record indefinitely and will block a firearm purchase or a professional license even though nothing was ever proven. Getting the judgment located and transmitted is its own task.

How the process works

1. Pull the record and identify every charge, court, and docket number — including cases in city courts and other counties, which people routinely forget.
2. Confirm the disposition on each charge and clear any outstanding costs.
3. File the petition and proposed order in the court of origin. You generally do not have to appear.
4. The signed order goes to the arresting agency, the jail, the clerk, and the TBI.
5. Get certified copies. Keep them — private background-check companies buy bulk data and often keep reporting an expunged charge after the State has cleared it, and a certified order is what fixes that.

Where the case started decides where it is filed

A Memphis case is filed at 201 Poplar. A charge that started in a suburb municipal court is filed there, and a felony that was bound over is filed in Criminal Court rather than General Sessions. If you were charged in Tipton, Fayette, or another West Tennessee county, the petition goes to that county’s court. We handle all of them.

How the statute is organized now

Tennessee renumbered its expungement law in April 2025 (2025 Pub. Ch. 268). Older articles and forms that cite § 40-32-101(g) are using the old numbering; § 40-32-101 now holds only definitions. The sections that matter are these:

• § 40-32-106, charges that did not end in a conviction. A dismissal, nolle prosequi, no true bill, not-guilty verdict on all charges, or arrest with no charge is expunged without cost and with no waiting period. A completed diversion is expunged under the same section for the clerk’s fee, with a TBI certificate of eligibility attached, except where the diverted offense was a sexual offense (§§ 40-32-106(d), 40-32-102(c)).
• § 40-32-107, convictions. An eligible misdemeanor or Class E felony can be expunged five years after the sentence is completed, and a listed Class C or D felony after ten years. All fines, costs and restitution must be paid, the number of convictions you can clear is limited, and the procedure is in § 40-32-108.

What the fees are

A dismissal costs nothing to expunge. A conviction or diversion expungement carries the clerk’s costs, which depend on the court and the case. The separate state fees that once applied to conviction and diversion expungements were repealed in 2019 (Pub. Ch. 200), so any source still quoting a state fee is out of date. Separately, the TBI charges $100 for the certificate a court must have before it can grant diversion in the first place (§ 38-6-118(e)), and the TBI accepts an indigency form signed by the judge.

Common questions

Is Tennessee passing a clean slate law or shorter waiting periods? Not so far. Bills for automatic expungement and for shorter waiting periods were introduced in the 2025–2026 session, and none became law. Until that changes, every expungement still needs a petition, and the five- and ten-year waits for convictions still apply.

My charge was retired. Can I expunge it now? Not yet. “Retired” is not one of the grounds listed in § 40-32-106, so until the court enters a dismissal there is nothing for the statute to expunge. Once a dismissal is entered, the expungement is free. Getting that order, and dealing with any costs on the file, is usually the first piece of work. More on dismissal, retirement and diversion.

I was convicted of one charge and the others were dismissed. Can the dismissed ones be expunged? Not in the usual way. Section 40-32-106 does not apply to someone convicted of a related or lesser offense from the same episode, but the statute still allows the charges that did not end in a conviction to be removed from electronic databases (§ 40-32-106(c)).

Will an expungement restore my gun rights? An expungement restores you to the position you were in before the arrest. Under § 40-32-110 you do not have to disclose the expunged record, and your eligibility for firearms and a handgun carry permit returns if you are otherwise eligible.

Does the State keep anything after an expungement? A little, for narrow purposes. An expunged conviction stays in a confidential record that can be used only to enhance the sentence for a later offense (§ 40-32-108). The TBI keeps a confidential entry for every diversion, used only to check eligibility for a future diversion (§ 38-6-118).

For the misdemeanor-specific rules and timelines, see misdemeanor expungement in Tennessee. Related: misdemeanor defense · felony defense · Memphis criminal defense

Bring us what you have — even a name and an approximate year is enough to start. Office (901) 324-5000 · 901-412-2973.