How it works in Ohio

The steps

1. Get fingerprinted

   To get your own record from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), you submit a complete set of fingerprints with your request. The Attorney General's page says electronic fingerprints can be taken at BCI's four offices — London, Bowling Green, Richfield and Youngstown — or through a WebCheck provider in your area, which may charge a convenience fee; bring a valid photo ID. ORC § 2953.32 does not require fingerprinting before you apply: if you were not fingerprinted at arrest and fingerprinting was required for the offense, the court orders you to a sheriff after it grants the order.

   Fingerprint fee: Varies by provider — Set by the WebCheck provider: Ohio Legal Help says a personal-use background check through a WebCheck location may cost about $40 or more, and the Attorney General's page says a WebCheck vendor may charge a convenience fee on top of BCI's own fee.

2. Request your record

   Ask the Bureau of Criminal Investigation for a copy of your own computerized record. The Attorney General's page lists what you submit: your complete name, current address and other identifying characteristics; a complete set of fingerprints; your signed consent; and the fee by business check, money order or electronic payment, payable to the Treasurer of State of Ohio. A minor's request needs a waiver signed by a parent or legal guardian. Ohio Legal Help adds that your complete record also lives in each court's own docket — search every clerk of courts where you were charged, since one file may not show everything.

   Record request fee: $22.00

3. Review your record

   Check every entry. The Attorney General's page says you may challenge your computerized record if you believe it is incorrect: collect any available proof and contact the agency responsible for the entry — often the county sheriff's office, the local police department, or the municipal or common pleas court that made it; BCI keeps no court documents for that purpose. If everything is accurate, make a copy for your file and keep the original somewhere safe.

4. Gather your case details

   ORC § 2953.32 requires no documents with the application; the court's own probation officer makes inquiries and a written report, including whether you were fingerprinted at arrest. What the application asks for is the detail of each case — the court, the case number, the offense and its degree, the disposition and the date of your final discharge — and Ohio Legal Help's guide to finding your records shows where each sits in a clerk's docket. Some courts have their own packets; ask the clerk which forms to use and how many copies to file. If you want a certified copy of a judgment entry for your own file, the clerk charges a certification fee per page.

   Certified copy fee: $1.00 — Per page, at the Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts; each county's clerk sets its own.

5. Verify the final documents

   Review each document for accuracy and make a copy of every original. Keep the court, case number, offense, degree, disposition and final discharge date of each case together, since the application asks for them.

6. Prepare your application

   Use the court's application form for your case; Ohio Legal Help says a court may keep separate packets for sealing and expungement and for convictions and non-convictions. Under ORC § 2953.32, you may apply to seal a conviction after your final discharge and a wait. The wait is six months for a minor misdemeanor. It is one year for one or more misdemeanors or fourth or fifth degree felonies, so long as none is a felony offense of violence or a violation of section 2921.43 of the Revised Code. It is three years for one or two third-degree felonies, so long as none is a violation of section 2921.43. It is seven years if the record includes a conviction under section 2921.43. If you were subject to sex offender registration, it is five years after those duties end. You may apply to expunge a misdemeanor one year after final discharge, a minor misdemeanor six months after, and a felony ten years after the date you could first apply to seal it. A forfeited bail on a misdemeanor can be sealed at any time and expunged after one year, or six months for a minor misdemeanor. A conviction under section 2919.25 that is a third or fourth degree misdemeanor, or under section 2919.27, can be sealed but never expunged — Ohio Legal Help reads those as misdemeanor domestic violence and a protection order violation. A case that ended with no conviction has no wait under ORC § 2953.33; a no bill waits two years, and a pardon can be sealed once its conditions are met; a dismissed charge or a no bill for an offense that section lists in division (C), such as a first or second degree felony or a traffic offense, can be sealed but not expunged. A victim of human trafficking may apply at any time to expunge a conviction under ORC § 2953.36 or a case that ended with no conviction under ORC § 2953.521. Certain older firearms convictions can be expunged at any time under ORC § 2953.35. Under ORC § 2953.61, if one act brought two or more charges with different outcomes, you wait until every one of them is eligible. One application may cover more than one case.

7. Finalize your application

   Take the completed application from Step 6, the documents collected in Step 4, and the record from Step 2, and put them together in a complete package. Double-check every file in the package is the original and ensure you have a copy of the complete package for your personal file.

8. File your sealing application

   File the application with the court that sentenced you — under ORC § 2953.32 the sentencing court, or a court of common pleas if you were convicted in another state or in a federal court; a forfeited bail is filed in the court where the misdemeanor case was pending. One application may ask to seal or expunge more than one case. Unless you file a poverty affidavit showing you are indigent, you pay the application fee, and the court may add a local court fee the statute caps, regardless of how many records the application covers. Ohio Legal Help says there is no fee to seal or expunge a dismissal, a not guilty finding or a no bill, and that some courts have you serve the prosecutor yourself.

   Filing fee: $50.00 — The application fee under section 2953.32(D)(3), one fee however many records the application covers; the court may add a local court fee of not more than $50.00; both are waived on a poverty affidavit showing you are indigent. Ohio Legal Help says there is no fee to seal or expunge a dismissal, a not guilty finding or a no bill.

9. Work with the court

   Under ORC § 2953.32, the court sets a hearing 45 to 90 days after you file and notifies the prosecutor at least sixty days before it; the prosecutor may object in writing up to thirty days before the hearing, and a victim who asked for notice may be present and heard. The court's probation officer makes inquiries and a written report about you, including whether you were fingerprinted at arrest; if your conviction was under section 2919.21 and you have a child support order, the officer asks the child support enforcement agency about your compliance. At the hearing the court decides whether your offense is one it may seal or expunge, whether you applied in time, whether any proceedings are pending against you, whether you have been rehabilitated to its satisfaction, and whether your interest outweighs the government's need to keep the record. Ohio Legal Help says you must attend and be ready to say what you have done since.

10. Receive the court's order

    If the court grants the application, under ORC § 2953.32 it orders all official records of the case sealed or expunged, as you asked, and the index references to the case deleted; for a forfeited bail it dismisses the charges. The proceedings are then considered not to have occurred — except that if you are convicted of a later offense, a court may consider the sealed record at sentencing. Read the order to see which cases it covers and whether it seals or expunges. Keep a certified copy for your own files.

11. Verify the record is sealed

    Under ORC § 2953.34, the court sends notice of the order to the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation and to every public office or agency it believes may hold a record of the case; under ORC § 2953.32 it also forwards the order with your fingerprint record to the bureau, or orders you to a sheriff to be fingerprinted if you were not at arrest and the offense required it. A sealed record stays with the agencies that hold it, open only to the persons and purposes the statute lists — a law enforcement officer or prosecutor deciding how to charge you, your probation or parole officer, the bureau for certain checks, and you and anyone you name — and an agency may keep an index marked sealed. An expunged record is destroyed by every agency except the bureau, which keeps a copy only to judge an application for law enforcement employment. Ohio Legal Help says sealing can take at least six weeks after the order. A public employee who releases a sealed record for a job, bond or license commits a fourth-degree misdemeanor, and on a job application you may be questioned only about convictions not sealed unless the question bears a direct and substantial relationship to the position. If a background-check report is out of date, your certified copy of the order is your reference; confirm with the clerk of the sentencing court and the arresting agency that their records reflect it.

If you have to mail anything, remember to keep a copy of whatever you send and to use a method with a tracking number like the USPS Flat Rate Envelope.