California May Have Already Cleared Your Record and Told Only the Court

More than two million people in L.A. County have had an arrest or conviction relieved without filing anything.

Before you pay anyone to clear an old conviction, find out whether California already cleared it. Every month, the state Department of Justice sweeps its own criminal history database and marks the arrests and convictions that qualify for relief, with no petition, no hearing and no filing fee. The part almost nobody knows is on the department’s own page about the program: “The Department does not automatically notify individuals that they have received automatic relief; it only automatically notifies the courts having jurisdiction.”

The sweep has run every month since July 1, 2022, and it reaches back through records dated January 1, 1973. Los Angeles County's share of that is the largest in the state. The department's research branch counted 2,064,743 people in L.A. County granted automatic record relief between July 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023, along with 2,892,404 separate arrest or conviction events — 24.35 percent of every event relieved in California — in a demographic analysis it published in November 2024. Statewide, the sweep reached 6,861,324 people in those 18 months. For 2,930,051 of them, every event on the record now carries the notation.

It isn't an expungement, and the department says so in those words: “Automatic record relief is not a dismissal, sealing or expungement of a person's state summary criminal history information record.” The conviction stays printed where it was, with a note beside it reading “relief granted,” the date the department granted it, and the code section. What changes is who's allowed to see it.

That sits oddly next to the statute, and the two are worth holding at once. Penal Code section 1203.425 tells the department to “grant relief, including dismissal of a conviction,” and says a person granted relief “shall be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense” — subject to a list of exceptions a few paragraphs down. So the conviction can be dismissed as a matter of law and still sit on the printout. Work from the printout, because that's the document employers and licensing boards act on.

Whether the sweep can reach you: eight questions

The statutory test is a checklist, and it's shorter than you'd expect. Answer these in order. The first answer that stops you, stops you.

1. Do you have to register under the Sex Offender Registration Act? If yes, the monthly review can't reach the conviction at all. The statute puts this condition first, and no waiting period cures it.

2. Is there an active local, state or federal supervision record for you in the Supervised Release File? A live entry holds the review off until it closes.

3. Does the department's record show you serving a sentence now, or any indication of pending charges? Same answer — and note the wording, because the test turns on what the department's record shows, not on what's true. The statute says relief goes to people for whom, “based upon the information available in the department's record,” it doesn't appear a sentence is being served.

4. Is the conviction dated January 1, 1973 or later? Older than that, and it's outside the sweep entirely.

5. Were you sentenced to probation, and did you finish the term without a revocation? Then you qualify. This is the shortest path in the section, with no extra waiting period attached to it.

6. Was it a misdemeanor or an infraction with no probation? Then you qualify once you've completed the sentence and at least one calendar year has passed since the date of judgment.

7. Was it a felony, and not one where you completed probation? Then all of it has to be behind you — incarceration, probation, mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision and parole — and four years have to pass after you complete probation or supervision, with no new felony conviction in them.

8. Was that felony a serious felony under section 1192.7(c), a violent felony under section 667.5, or an offense that requires registration? Then the felony path is closed, however long you wait.

No on 1, 2 and 3; yes on 4; yes on one of 5, 6 or 7; and no on 8: you qualify, and there's nothing to file to get it. A yes on 1, 2 or 8: you don't, not automatically, and a petition is the road. Question 3 is the gray zone, and so is one more thing the statute allows. A prosecuting attorney or probation department may file a petition up to 90 calendar days before the date you become eligible, asking the court to block the relief on a showing that granting it “would pose a substantial threat to the public safety.” The court has to notify you and hold a hearing within 45 days. The prosecutor carries the burden first; if the court finds it carried, the burden shifts to you to show your hardship outweighs the risk.

Arrests run on a different clock

An arrest that never became a conviction has its own ladder, in Penal Code section 851.93, and the wait is set by what the arrest was for.

A misdemeanor arrest where the charge was dismissed: no waiting period. A misdemeanor arrest where no case was ever filed: one calendar year after the arrest. A felony arrest where no case was filed: three calendar years. A felony punishable by eight years or more in state prison, with no case filed: six calendar years. A completed diversion program — prefiling diversion, drug court, deferred entry of judgment, pretrial diversion: relief on completion.

Those add up fast here. We pulled the county table the department is required to publish on its OpenJustice data portal, and in the most recent one we could retrieve, for 2023, L.A. County saw 147,082 arrests granted relief under section 851.93 and 89,755 convictions granted relief under section 1203.425. Exactly one L.A. County conviction was prohibited from relief that year.

The same table carries a last column worth a minute of your time. For 22.3 percent of L.A. County arrests, the state's summary record holds no disposition at all — an arrest, and no outcome beside it. The department grants relief “if the relevant information is present in the department's electronic records.” Read those two sentences next to each other before you assume an eligible record has been marked.

How to see whether it happened: $25, or nothing

One document answers the question, and it's your own state record. The department's record review instructions are four steps long for a California resident: fill out Live Scan form BCIA 8016RR, mark “Record Review” as the application type, write “Record Review” on the reason line, and take it to any public Live Scan site. The department's processing fee is $25.

That fee is waivable, and the test is written in plain words on the waiver page: you may qualify if you live in California and you receive public assistance like CalFresh, Medi-Cal or disability; or your income is low for your area and household size; or you have no income. The form is online, you sign it under penalty of perjury, and it prints an Application for Live Scan Fingerprinting Services with your waiver number on it. Bring that and a photo ID. You'll still owe the Live Scan operator its own rolling fee — the waiver covers the state's $25, not theirs.

From out of state the form is BCIA 8705, the prints go on an FD-258 card, and the package mails with a check or money order to the Record Review & Challenge Section, P.O. Box 160207, Sacramento, CA 95816-0207.

If the record comes back with no relief notation and you believe one belongs there, the department's answer is specific: you don't need to do anything to get automatic relief, because the review runs every month on its own — but if you think the record is wrong, file the Claim of Alleged Inaccuracy or Incompleteness, form BCIA 8706, which arrives with your record.

What the form says, and what it means

The Judicial Council's Petition for Dismissal — form CR-180, revised January 1, 2024 — opens with a note that most people filing one have never read.

What the form says: “Your conviction may have already been automatically dismissed by the California Department of Justice (DOJ) under Penal Code section 1203.425. If so, this petition may be unnecessary—but there may be additional benefits to filing it with the court, including felony reduction under Penal Code section 17(b).”

What it means: the sweep can relieve a felony. It can't turn one into a misdemeanor. That takes a judge, and asking for it is item 8 on the form.

What the form says: “If you want to know if your conviction has already been dismissed, you can request your Record of Arrest and Prosecution (RAP) sheet from the DOJ, but this is not required.”

What it means: order it anyway. It's the difference between filing a petition you need and a petition you don't.

The three boxes that decide a petition

CR-180 runs nine numbered items and lists eight code sections across its caption. Three of them decide the outcome.

Item 1 is the offense table, and its last two columns are the ones to think hardest about: whether each offense is eligible for reduction to a misdemeanor under section 17(b), and whether a misdemeanor is eligible for reduction to an infraction under section 17(d)(2). That's the relief the monthly sweep can't hand you.

Then exactly one of items 2 through 7, matching how your case ended. Item 2 is section 1203.4, for a felony or misdemeanor where probation was granted. Item 3 is section 1203.4a, for a misdemeanor or infraction sentenced without probation more than a year ago. Item 4 is section 1203.49, for a misdemeanor under section 647(b) that resulted from being trafficked. Item 5 is section 1203.41, for a felony county jail or state prison sentence, with its own one-year and two-year clocks. Item 6 is section 1203.42, for a felony prison sentence that would have been eligible for a county jail sentence after 2011. Item 7 is section 1203.43, for a deferred entry of judgment.

And items 2(c) and 3(b), the only blanks on the form that ask you to write anything. “Should be granted relief in the interests of justice” is the discretionary door, and the form tells you how to walk through it: explain in the space below, or attach a letter, or use the Attachment, form MC-025, or the Attached Declaration, form MC-031, which is signed under penalty of perjury.

Bring these

Your case number and conviction date exactly as they appear on the case record. The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles marks both fields “as shown on your case record” in its L.A. County petition packet, which is the kind of detail that sends people home from the window.

Your state record, if you ordered one. Item 7 of CR-180, the deferred-entry-of-judgment branch, carries a box for attaching it.

CR-180, and CR-181 — the order the judge signs.

Form CR-106, Proof of Service — Criminal Record Clearing, completed by whoever mails or hands over the copies, and naming the agency served.

The name and address of the district attorney or city attorney who prosecuted the case. LAFLA's packet puts that instruction right on the service form, because that's the office you have to notify.

Section 1203.4 makes that last item non-optional, and the wording is strict: relief “shall not be granted” unless the prosecuting attorney has been given 15 days' notice of the petition. The probation officer notifies the prosecutor when a petition is filed, and the court presumes the prosecutor received notice if proof of service is on file. There's a quiet advantage in the next subdivision, too. If the prosecutor is served and then fails to appear and object, the prosecutor can't later move to set aside the dismissal or appeal it.

Unpaid restitution doesn't stop it

This is the belief that keeps people from filing, and section 1203.4 contradicts it three times in a row. A petition “shall not be denied due to an unfulfilled order of restitution or restitution fine.” An unfulfilled order or fine “shall not be grounds for finding that a defendant did not fulfil the condition of probation for the entire period of probation.” And when the court weighs a discretionary petition, an unpaid order “shall not be grounds for denial of the petition for relief.” You still owe the money. You can still get the dismissal.

What neither one buys you

Automatic relief and a court dismissal stop short in most of the same places, and the lists are in the code rather than left to a clerk to explain.

You still have to disclose. The dismissal order, in section 1203.4's own words, “does not relieve them of the obligation to disclose the conviction in response to any direct question contained in any questionnaire or application for public office, for licensure by any state or local agency, or for contracting with the California State Lottery Commission.” Section 1203.425 keeps its own version of that list for automatic relief, naming applications for employment as a peace officer, for public office, for in-home supportive services and for contracting with the lottery.

Guns are untouched. Neither one permits a person to own, possess or control a firearm, and neither prevents a conviction under the prohibited-persons chapter.

A protective order survives. An unexpired criminal protective order stays in full effect until it expires or the court modifies it, whatever happens to the conviction underneath it.

A later prosecution can use it. In any subsequent prosecution, section 1203.4 says, the prior conviction “may be pleaded and proved and shall have the same effect as if probation had not been granted or the accusation or information dismissed.”

Some employers still see it. The department releases relieved records to employers running fingerprint background checks where the law permits, and it names its own two clearest examples: an arrest goes out when the agency wants the record for peace officer employment, and a conviction goes out when the requesting agency performs an education function.

Companies that sell background checks are a separate problem. They don't read the department's database at all; they build files from court and agency records. What reaches them is the court file going quiet — a court told that relief was granted, the department says, “should not disclose information about these records to employers or commercial background check services, unless permitted.”

And some offenses are simply out. Section 1203.4 doesn't reach a misdemeanor under Vehicle Code section 42002.1, or convictions under Penal Code sections 286(c), 288, 287(c), former 288a, 288.5, 289(j), 311.1, 311.2, 311.3 or 311.11, or a felony under section 261.5(d) — or an infraction. You're wondering whether an infraction really counts here. For the monthly sweep it does; for a 1203.4 petition it doesn't, which is why an infraction sentenced without probation goes on item 3 of the form, under section 1203.4a.

Where to get this done for free in L.A.

The Los Angeles County Public Defender runs free record clearing and takes it on the road. The number is (213) 204-9904, and the office's own calendar lists clinics at The Source inside the Central Library at 630 W. Fifth St., at the West Hollywood library on North San Vicente Boulevard, at Homeboy Industries on Bruno Street, at Friends Outside in Inglewood, and at county hiring events in East Los Angeles. That calendar moves, so the phone number is the reliable way in.

Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles helps with expungements and Proposition 47 petitions free, at (800) 399-4529. Its virtual expungement clinic runs the second Tuesday of the month, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., with pre-screening first. The clinic at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College takes walk-ins the first Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Watts is the third Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Whittier is appointment-only on the second Monday, at (562) 261-5611.

LAFLA's four self-help legal access centers are at 1725 Main St. in Santa Monica, 1 East Regent St. in Inglewood, 825 Maple Ave. in Torrance and 275 Magnolia Ave. in Long Beach.

The court's own counters are free as well, though they don't all cover the same ground: our guide to L.A. County's 13 self-help centers lists what each one handles.

Order the record first. It's $25 at a Live Scan counter, or nothing if you're on CalFresh, Medi-Cal or disability, and it's the only page that tells you whether the job left is a petition or a phone call.

Code sections, forms, fees and clinic schedules above were checked on October 1, 2026 against Penal Code sections 851.93, 1203.4 and 1203.425 on the Legislature's site; the California Department of Justice's automatic record relief, record review and fee waiver pages; the department's November 2024 demographic analysis of AB 1076 cases and its 2023 county table of automatic record relief statistics; Judicial Council form CR-180, revised January 1, 2024; the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles's expungement page and its L.A. County petition packet; and the Los Angeles County Public Defender's record clearing pages.