Expunging a felony in Kentucky

Who qualifies

KRS 431.073 covers Class D felonies, the lowest felony class in Kentucky, carrying one to five years. There are two doors in:

• The listed offenses. The statute names about sixty specific Class D crimes, mostly drug possession, theft, forgery, fraud, and bad checks. If your conviction is on that list, the prosecutor cannot force a rehabilitation hearing just by objecting.
• Any other Class D felony that was not a DUI, a sex offense, an offense against a child, abuse of public office, assault on a family member (third offense), or retaliating against a witness, and that did not cause serious bodily injury or death. For these the court must also find you have been rehabilitated and pose no significant risk of reoffending.

Class C felonies and above cannot be expunged unless you receive a full pardon from the Governor. If a charge was reduced at sentencing, it is the conviction that matters, not the original charge.

The waiting period

Five years after you complete the sentence, or five years after you successfully complete probation or parole, whichever is later. During the five years before you file you cannot have been convicted of any felony or misdemeanor anywhere, and nothing can be pending against you when you file.

If you have several convictions, the clock runs from the most recent one. A 2015 case and a 2023 case are both eligible in 2028, not separately.

What it costs

• $40 for the expungement certification from the Administrative Office of the Courts, which lists every case on your record and whether each one qualifies. One certification covers all your cases.
• $50 filing fee per case, paid when the application is filed. Not refundable.
• $250 expungement fee per case, charged when the court grants it. The statute allows an installment plan of at least eighteen months, and nobody goes to jail for falling behind on it.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has held that people who qualify as indigent can have both the $50 and the $250 waived. Our flat fee for felony expungement starts at $1,000.

How the process goes

1. Get the certification. It takes the AOC a few weeks.
2. File the application as a motion in the original criminal case, in the Circuit Court where you were convicted.
3. The clerk notifies the prosecutor, who has sixty days to respond. If there was a victim, the prosecutor notifies them too.
4. No objection: the court can grant the expungement on the papers. Objection: a hearing is set within 120 days where you show, by clear and convincing evidence, that expungement is consistent with public safety, supported by how you have lived since, and warranted by the interests of justice.
5. Once the order is entered and the $250 is paid, the court and every agency that holds the record, including the state police, delete it. The court will answer any inquiry by saying no record exists.

What expungement does

The conviction is vacated and the record is removed from official state background checks. You do not have to disclose it on applications for employment, credit, or housing. Your right to vote is restored. See the separate page on gun rights, which is more involved.

Expungement does not mean you were found innocent, and it does not undo anything that happened in the case. It also does not erase a federal conviction or a conviction from another state; only Kentucky convictions can be expunged under Kentucky law.