Missouri Automatic Expungement Begins in January: What SB 1421 Clears, What Still Needs a Petition, and What Can Never Be Expunged

Beginning no later than January 1, 2027, Missouri will automatically expunge certain drug possession and drug paraphernalia convictions, with no petition, no lawyer, and no court filing required. The new “Clean Slate” law is narrower than many headlines suggest, and most other offenses still require a petition. Some offenses can never be expunged at all.

Missouri has allowed people to petition for expungement of many convictions since 2018, and the state’s petition waiting periods are among the shortest in the country. The obstacle has never been eligibility alone. It has been the cost, paperwork, and time of a court filing. According to the Clean Slate Initiative, Missouri is now the fourteenth state, plus the District of Columbia, to enact a Clean Slate law that clears some records automatically. This article explains what the new law does, which convictions it covers, which convictions still require a petition, which can never be expunged, and the details that most summaries leave out.

The Law: SB 1421 and RSMo § 610.141

The automatic expungement program is codified in a new statute, RSMo § 610.141, enacted by SB 1421 (2026). The bill was sponsored by Senator Nick Schroer, with the automatic expungement provisions drawn from legislation by Senator Brian Williams. SB 1421 also enacted RSMo § 610.143, which governs how expunged records may be reported and when they must still be disclosed, and RSMo § 610.144, which creates a dedicated Missouri Expungement Fund to pay for the technology and staff needed to run the system.

The mechanics are administrative rather than judicial. The Highway Patrol’s central criminal records repository must screen criminal history data for eligible convictions on a rolling basis, at least weekly, and expunge them automatically based on the data in its own system. It then notifies the Office of State Courts Administrator, which expunges the matching case records in the statewide court system that feeds Missouri Case.net. The law applies retroactively to any conviction that exists in electronic form, regardless of how old it is.

Which Convictions Will Be Expunged Automatically

The automatic program covers only four “qualifying offenses”:

Both misdemeanor and felony versions qualify, but a conviction is expunged automatically only if every one of the following conditions is met:

• Final conviction. The case ended in a conviction that is final.
• “Clean” case. The qualifying offense is the only conviction in the case, or in the part of the case that contains only qualifying convictions. A possession count that was resolved alongside a theft or assault conviction in the same case will not be picked up automatically.
• Waiting period. One year for a misdemeanor and three years for a felony, measured from “final disposition.” The statute defines final disposition as completing every court-imposed term and condition and being unconditionally released from custody. Unpaid fines, costs, or restitution, or an unfinished term of probation, keep the clock from starting.
• No new convictions. No misdemeanor or felony conviction during the waiting period. Ordinary traffic violations under Chapters 301, 302, 303, 304, and 307 do not count.
• Nothing pending. No outstanding warrant and no pending misdemeanor or felony charge when eligibility is checked.
• Not a class A felony.
• Within the lifetime cap. No more than three misdemeanor and two felony expungements in total, counting both automatic expungements and petitions under § 610.140.

Drug distribution, delivery, manufacturing, and trafficking offenses are not qualifying offenses and are not cleared automatically. Neither are any non-drug offenses. Empower Missouri, which advocated for the bill, has said it hopes to see the automatic program expanded to offenses such as bad checks and shoplifting, but that would require new legislation.

Convictions That Can Still Be Expunged by Petition

For everything outside the four qualifying drug offenses, the existing petition process under RSMo § 610.140 remains the path. It covers most nonviolent felonies and misdemeanors, municipal ordinance violations, and infractions, as well as arrest records that never led to a conviction. Common examples include stealing and receiving stolen property, most non-dangerous drug offenses (including drug cases that do not meet the automatic program’s “clean case” rule), property damage, trespass, passing bad checks, many fraud offenses, resisting or interfering with arrest, peace disturbance, and most municipal charges. Our page on expungements and our earlier post on the expungement process and who is eligible walk through the basics.

The petition must name every agency, court, prosecutor, and records repository that holds the records; an order does not bind anyone left off. The prosecutor has 30 days after service to object, the court generally holds any hearing within 60 days after an objection, and the court must rule within six months of filing. A victim may be heard, and the court may find that the offense’s continuing impact on the victim rebuts the presumption. A petition dismissed on the merits cannot be refiled for one year. Related offenses committed as part of the same course of conduct can be combined in one petition and count only once, at the highest level, toward the lifetime cap.

A self-represented person may use the court’s pro se petition form (CR360), and Clear My Record Missouri, a project of the UMKC School of Law Expungement Clinic, publishes the forms with step-by-step instructions. In practice, identifying every agency to name, confirming that each obligation was satisfied, pleading the presumption correctly, and responding to a prosecutor’s objection are where petitions most often fail, and where an attorney adds value.

Convictions That Cannot Be Expunged

Section 610.140.3 bars expungement, by petition or otherwise, of these categories:

• Any class A felony, and any “dangerous felony” as defined in RSMo § 556.061.
• Any offense that requires sex offender registration, and every offense in Chapter 566 (sexual offenses).
• Any felony in which death is an element.
• Felony assault, misdemeanor or felony domestic assault, and felony kidnapping, along with listed kidnapping-related offenses.
• Listed offenses against children and families, including incest and child abuse, abandonment, and endangerment offenses in Chapter 568.
• Arson offenses and first-degree burglary, along with other listed property offenses in Chapter 569.
• Listed offenses in Chapter 570, including robbery, forgery, and identity-theft offenses.
• Listed weapons offenses in Chapter 571, including unlawful possession of a firearm and most unlawful-use-of-weapons offenses under § 571.030.
• Listed offenses involving sexual exploitation, terrorism and public order, perjury, tampering with judicial proceedings, and escape (Chapters 573, 574, and 575).
• Listed public-corruption and election offenses (Chapters 105, 115, and 130).
• Intoxication-related traffic and boating offenses, such as DWI and BWI, and aircraft alcohol offenses.
• Motor vehicle violations by a person who holds, or is required to hold, a commercial driver’s license.
• Municipal ordinance violations that are the substantial equivalent of any of the above.

The statute lists the excluded offenses by section number, so the specific charge of conviction, not its common name, controls. A charge that sounds minor may be on the list, and a charge that sounds serious may not be. The complete list is in § 610.140.3.

Other Paths to a Clean Record

• Marijuana offenses. Amendment 3 (2022), now Article XIV, Section 2 of the Missouri Constitution, required courts to expunge misdemeanor marijuana offenses by June 8, 2023 and felony marijuana offenses by December 8, 2023, covering most nonviolent marijuana offenses that are no longer crimes (summary from Clear My Record Missouri). Offenses involving sale to minors, violence, or driving under the influence are excluded. People whose marijuana records were missed can raise the issue with the court that handled the case.
• First-offense DWI. Although DWI is excluded from § 610.140, RSMo § 610.130 allows a one-time expungement of a first misdemeanor intoxication-related traffic or boating offense after ten years with no further alcohol-related enforcement contacts. It is not available to anyone who holds or is required to hold a commercial driver’s license.
• Dismissals, acquittals, and suspended impositions of sentence. Under RSMo § 610.105, those records are already closed to the public by operation of law, though some remain visible to law enforcement and certain licensing and child-care entities.

Automatic expungement is a floor, not a ceiling. Most Missourians with older records will still need a petition, and the new law does nothing for convictions that are mixed into a case with other charges.

Automatic Versus Petition at a Glance

Details Most Summaries Leave Out

Unpaid court debt blocks automatic relief

Because the waiting period runs from “final disposition,” which requires completion of every court-imposed term, an unpaid fine, court cost, or restitution balance can prevent an otherwise eligible conviction from ever qualifying. Anyone expecting an automatic expungement should confirm that every financial obligation in the case is shown as satisfied on Case.net.

The system acts only on the data it has

The Highway Patrol and the courts are directed to act “solely” on the information in their electronic systems. Missing dispositions, older paper-only records, mismatched identifiers, or a qualifying count bundled with a non-qualifying charge will cause a record to be skipped. The statute makes a petition under § 610.140 the only remedy when an eligible record is not expunged automatically.

Background-check companies must delete expunged records

Section 610.141 requires the Highway Patrol to give consumer reporting agencies the information they need to delete expunged records, and § 610.143 provides that expunged convictions may no longer be reported. The Attorney General may sue for violations, including damages of up to $1,000 per willful or negligent violation, and an affected consumer may seek an injunction.

What expungement does

• Closes the record to the public, including on Case.net, and restores civil rights as if the offense had not occurred, including the rights to vote, serve on a jury, and hold public office.
• Allows the person, in most situations, to answer “no” when an employer asks about arrests or convictions, without committing perjury or making a false statement.
• Protects employers, volunteer organizations, and landlords from negligent-hiring or negligent-leasing liability tied to an expunged record, provided they used reasonable care.

What expungement does not do

• It does not erase the record for law enforcement. Courts, prosecutors, and police retain access, and an expunged conviction can still be counted as a prior offense in sentencing for a later crime.
• Some applications still require disclosure. These include state professional licenses, gaming licenses, firearms permits under Chapter 571, employment with law enforcement and emergency services, lottery and gaming employers, federally insured banks and credit unions, insurance companies, and any employer required by law to exclude applicants with certain convictions.
• It may not help with federal consequences. A state expungement generally does not remove a conviction for federal immigration purposes. Non-citizens should consult an immigration attorney before relying on it.
• It does not reach copies already in private hands. News archives and data already sold to private databases may still circulate, although the new reporting rules give consumers a remedy against background-check companies.

What to Do Now

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Disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Haake Law Group, PC. The automatic expungement program had not yet launched as of this writing, and implementation details may change. Eligibility depends on the exact statute of conviction and the facts of each case, and errors in a petition can delay relief for a year. Verify current law with the court or the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and consult a licensed attorney about your own record.