How it works in Rhode Island

The steps

1. Request your record

   Get your own Rhode Island state background check — the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) report — from the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General. In person, go to the Customer Service Center at 4 Howard Avenue, Cranston, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a valid state or federal photo ID; it is a walk-in service, and the fee is paid by credit or debit card. By mail, send a signed and notarized release form, a copy of your photo ID, a check or money order payable to BCI and a self-addressed stamped envelope to 4 Howard Ave, Cranston RI 02920, and allow 14 days. The office gives the report only to you. Tell the BCI staff the check is for an expungement, since that purpose can call for more information than the standard report. The report shows only Rhode Island arrests that ended in a conviction or equivalent or are still pending, including a filing or a deferred sentence; an acquittal, a dismissal, a no true bill or no information does not appear on it, so for a sealing motion use the court's own record of the case.

   Record request fee: $5.00

2. Review your record

   Confirm there is no disqualifying information in your history. If there is something incorrect, follow the process to challenge the issue. If everything is accurate, make a copy for your file and keep the original somewhere safe.

3. Gather your case details

   Gather what the court's motion form asks for: the case number, your Bureau of Criminal Identification number, each count, charge and disposition, and the name of the police department that charged the case. R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-2 and the courts' forms require no certified copies with the motion; the affidavit you sign swears to the facts of your case instead. If you lack the case details, the Judicial Records Center can trace a case from your BCI report, and a certified copy of a court record carries a per-document fee there or by mail. If you still owe any fine, fee, cost, assessment or restitution in the case, pay it first: the court cannot grant the motion while court money is outstanding unless it reduces or waives the amount, and payment in full completes the expungement after the order.

   Certified copy fee: $3.00

4. Verify the final documents

   Check every detail against the court's file and your BCI report: the case number, the counts, the charges and the dispositions on the motion must match them. Make a copy of everything you will file.

5. Prepare your motion

   Use the court's own form for the court that handled your case: the District Court's Motion to Expunge or Seal Record (DC-33), the Superior Court's felony or misdemeanor Motion and Affidavit to Expunge or Seal Record (Superior-55), or the Family Court's misdemeanor form — each with its Affidavit in Support, where you check the part that fits your case: an acquittal or other exoneration, a decriminalized offense, a single conviction, several misdemeanors, or a deferred sentence. Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-2, you may move to expunge a conviction if you are a first offender — convicted once, of a felony or a misdemeanor, never before convicted of or placed on probation for either, with no case pending against you — or if you have more than one but fewer than six misdemeanor convictions and no felony; the multiple-misdemeanor door excludes a conviction under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, for driving under the influence or for refusing a chemical test, and a crime of violence as R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-1 defines it cannot be expunged. The wait runs from the completion of your sentence: five years for a misdemeanor, ten years for a felony, and ten years after your last sentence for several misdemeanors. A deferred sentence can be expunged as soon as you complete it and the court finds, after a hearing, that you kept every term of the deferral agreement; an offense that has since been decriminalized can be expunged with no wait, after a hearing in the court of conviction. Every outstanding court-imposed fine, fee, cost, assessment or charge must be paid, unless the court reduces or waives it. A case that ended in an acquittal, a dismissal, a no true bill, no information or other exoneration is sealed under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1-12 and R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1-12.1 rather than expunged: a case dismissed under District Court Rule 48(a) on or after January 1, 2023 is sealed automatically ten to twenty days after the dismissal, one dismissed under that rule before 2023 is sealed by the clerk at your request, and any other exoneration takes the same motion with Part One of the affidavit. A domestic violence complaint placed on file after a plea of not guilty, guilty or nolo contendere waits three years from the filing date before its records can be expunged, sealed or destroyed. A conviction for possessing marijuana that has since been decriminalized is expunged automatically under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-5, with no motion; the court may offer an expedited procedure on a written request.

6. Finalize your motion

   Put the motion together with its Affidavit in Support and your background check from Step 1. Sign the affidavit on the line marked Signature of the Defendant in the presence of a notary public or a clerk; the court's instructions say an attorney filing for a decriminalized offense needs no affidavit. Check that every count, charge and disposition on the motion matches the court's record, and keep a copy of the complete package for your own file.

7. File your expungement motion

   File the motion in the court in which the conviction took place — under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-2, the District Court, the Superior Court or the Family Court that handled your case. The clerk's office fills in the hearing date on the motion, at least ten days out, because under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-3 you must give the Office of the Attorney General and the police department that originally brought the charge at least ten days' notice of the hearing date; a sealing motion under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1-12.1 carries the same notice. Give that notice, then certify on the motion that you did.

   Filing fee: None — No filing fee is published for the motion: the Superior Court's fee schedule lists none for a motion to expunge or seal, the courts' motion forms name none, and section 12-1.3-3 as it reads today carries none (its 2021 amendments are P.L. 2021, ch. 141 and ch. 142). The court orders a decriminalized offense expunged without cost to you. Every fine, fee, cost, assessment and restitution still owed in the case must be paid in full, or waived by the court, before the expungement is completed.

8. Work with the court

   Go to the hearing on the date the clerk set, and bring the Order for Expungement or Sealing of Record the court's instructions tell you to bring. Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-3, the court considers all relevant testimony and information at the hearing and then decides, in its discretion, whether to order the expungement: it must find that in the five years before you filed, for a misdemeanor, or the ten years, for a felony or for several misdemeanors, you were not convicted of or arrested for any felony or misdemeanor; that no case is pending against you; that you owe no outstanding court-imposed fine, fee, cost, assessment or charge the court has not reduced or waived; that you have exhibited good moral character; and that your rehabilitation has been attained to the court's satisfaction and the expungement is consistent with the public interest. For a deferred sentence, the court must find that you complied with every term of the deferral agreement, including paying every fine, fee, cost, assessment and restitution in full; for a decriminalized offense it must find the sentence completed and the fines, fees and costs paid, and it may ask you to show — by an affidavit, for instance — that the offense is no longer a crime under current Rhode Island law. The court will also advise you that any bail money still on deposit and unclaimed when the record is expunged goes to the state's general treasury.

9. Receive the court's order

   If the court grants the motion, under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-3 it orders all records and records of conviction relating to the conviction expunged and every index and other reference to it removed from public inspection; if it denies the motion, the record stays as it is. The court's instructions say that once the motion is granted, every fine, fee, cost, restitution and assessment owed must be paid in full, or waived by the court, to complete the expungement, and that the clerk's office then prepares three certified copies of the order — one for your records, one for the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification unit, and one for the police department that charged the case — and that you are responsible for delivering the copies to those agencies. Keep your copy; it is your proof.

10. Verify the record is expunged

    Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-3, a copy of the order goes to every law enforcement agency and other agency known by you, the Attorney General or the court to hold the records, and each complies on the terms the court sets — in practice, the court's own instructions have you deliver the certified copies to the Bureau of Criminal Identification and the police department yourself. Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-1.3-4, once your record is expunged you are released from all penalties and disabilities of the conviction, except that if you are convicted of a later crime the court may count it as a prior conviction at sentencing. In any application for employment, a license or another civil right or privilege, or as a witness, you may state that you were never convicted of the crime — unless you apply for a law enforcement agency position, for admission to the bar, for a teaching certificate or a coaching certificate, or to operate or work at an early childhood education facility, where you must disclose it. A custodian of the expunged records may not disclose that they exist, except to you, to a sentencing court after a later conviction, to a bar admission, character and fitness or disciplinary body, to the commissioner of elementary and secondary education, or to a law enforcement agency when a new charge's nature would change because of the earlier conviction; an agency or person who willfully refuses to expunge the records, or willfully releases them knowing them expunged, is civilly liable. Confirm with the clerk of court, the Bureau of Criminal Identification and the police department that their records reflect the order, and ask the Attorney General's office for a new background check once they do — an expunged record is not reflected in it. If a background-check provider later produces an outdated report, your certified copy of the court's order is your authoritative reference.

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.