Clear your New Mexico record.

You file in the district court where the charges began. That holds even if your case was in a city, magistrate or metropolitan court. It holds if no case was filed at all. You mail a copy to the district attorney and to the Department of Public Safety. For a conviction, you also mail one to the agency that arrested you. The court rules after a hearing. If your case ended with no conviction, you can file one year after it closed. For a conviction, you must first finish your sentence and pay what you owe the state. You must also have no new conviction for a set time. The clock starts on the last day you finished any sentence. The time is two years for a city ordinance or most misdemeanors. It is four years for a fourth degree felony or a misdemeanor aggravated battery. It is six for a third degree felony, eight for a second, and ten for a first. Ten years also applies to an offense under the Crimes Against Household Members Act. The court must find that justice is served. Some convictions cannot be expunged. They are for a crime against a child, one that caused great bodily harm or death, a sex offense, embezzlement, and driving while under the influence of liquor or drugs.

After the order, the law treats the case as if it never happened. You and the officials who got the order may say no record exists. The records are not destroyed. Courts and law enforcement agencies keep them. They may not release copies without a court order. There is one exception. A financial institution may be regulated by the financial industry regulatory authority or the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a job or role there, you must still disclose it. A cannabis charge that is no longer a crime is expunged on its own. So is one that would now be a lesser offense. That happens two years after the arrest or conviction. Those records are destroyed.