Clear your Pennsylvania record.

An expunged record is removed. The district attorney and the State Police may keep a list of names, for set uses only. A court can expunge a charge that ended with no conviction. It can expunge a summary offense after five years with no new arrest or prosecution. It can expunge an underage drinking offense from age 18 to 20. You must be 21 and done with the sentence. At 70, it can expunge your record. You need ten years since your release with no arrest or prosecution. A trial that ends in not guilty on every count is expunged on its own. So is a pardon with no conditions.

Limited access hides a record from the public. Courts, police and a few agencies the law names still see it. You can ask for it by petition under 18 Pa.C.S. § 9122.1. A misdemeanor can qualify after seven years. So can an ungraded offense with a top term of five years. In that time you must have no new conviction that carries a year or more. You must also have paid any restitution and the law's fee. Some drug, theft, trespass, forgery, fraud and criminal mischief felonies can qualify after ten years. First- and second-degree felonies cannot. Clean Slate does the same on its own. It covers a second- or third-degree misdemeanor after seven years. The same goes for one with a top term of two years. It covers some drug offenses after ten years. It covers a summary offense after five years. It covers a charge that ended with no conviction. The law excepts offenses against the person or the family. It excepts firearms and sex offenses, cruelty to animals and corruption of minors. On a petition, that bar reaches only those with a top term above two years, and cruelty to animals is not on it. Clean Slate also stops at anyone ever convicted of a felony. A drug offense the law names does not count. It stops too at two or more offenses with a top term above two years. Four or more with a year or more also block it. A petition has its own bars, from murder and a first-degree felony to repeat offenses in the last ten or fifteen years.

After the order, you may answer as if the offense did not occur. A criminal justice agency can still ask. Federal law can still require an answer. No employer, landlord or school may use the record unless federal law requires it. A record under limited access still counts in court, including at sentencing.