Here are the five elements that must be proven in order to expunge a criminal arrest record under Missouri statute 610.122, as to situations where the arrest was based on false information and the following conditions exist:
1. No probable cause that the defendant did the crime;
2. No charges will be pursued;
3. Defendant has no misdemeanor or felony convictions;
4. Defendant did not receive a Suspended Imposition of Sentence (SIS;
5. No related civil action.
See Schollmeyer v. State of Missouri, (Mo. Ct. App. E.D. Slip Op. 98614, filed April 9, 2013), where the Eastern District of the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s expungement of the arrest record because: arrest based upon information admitted by defendant to be true; probable cause for arrest existed; criminal charges filed; and, defendant received a SIS. In sum, plenty of good cause for reversal of the trial court.
Expungement of an arrest record is just not as easy as often thought.
Note that there are various minor exceptions to the above to permit expungement in limited circumstances. Section 610.140.2 lists three categories of exceptions which include convictions of some crimes–passing bad checks, use of fraudulent credit/debit devices, specific property crimes, disturbing the peace. And other exceptions: Missouri statutes section 311.326 permits expungement of lesser driving under the influence records; 217.360 reversals of paternity orders . . . .
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