Massachusetts Sealing and Expungement Standards: Eligibility, Exclusions, and Federal Records

Sealing restricts access to an eligible Massachusetts criminal record. Expungement erases a narrower category of Massachusetts records. The Commissioner of Probation seals eligible convictions under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100A. Section 100C governs non-conviction records. Sections 100F through 100J govern time-based expungement, while § 100K governs expungement based on error, fraud, false identification, or conduct that is no longer criminal.

This page explains the statutory waiting periods, eligibility rules, exclusions, expungement grounds, and how Massachusetts orders affect FBI records. The client guide, Sealing and Expunging a Massachusetts Criminal Record, explains how a person requests sealing or expungement. How Massachusetts Judges Decide Sealing and Expungement Petitions addresses burdens, judicial factors, and supporting evidence.

Time-Based Sealing Under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100A

Section 100A requires a person seeking conviction sealing to submit a request to the Commissioner of Probation. A qualifying misdemeanor record becomes eligible three years after the court appearance and disposition, including any period of incarceration or custody. A qualifying felony record becomes eligible after seven years. A new conviction or period of incarceration within the applicable period may delay eligibility.

Section 100A generally requires fifteen years before the Commissioner may seal an eligible sex-offense record, and the Commissioner cannot seal it while any registration duty continues. A person whom the Sex Offender Registry Board has ever classified as Level 2 or Level 3 cannot seal the sex offense under § 100A. When the person satisfies every requirement and no statutory exclusion applies, the Commissioner must seal the record. A judge cannot shorten the § 100A waiting period.

Non-Conviction Sealing Under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100C

Section 100C requires sealing after a not-guilty finding, grand-jury no bill, or judicial finding of no probable cause unless the defendant submits a written request not to seal the record. A dismissal or nolle prosequi requires a petition to the court, which may order sealing when substantial justice would best be served. The judicial-decision guide explains the Pon factors, burden, and evidence for a discretionary petition.

What Expungement Removes

Expungement permanently erases or destroys a covered record from Massachusetts state and local systems. Under M.G.L. c. 276, § 100L, expungement includes covered publicly available police logs. The statutory definition excludes the statewide domestic-violence record-keeping system, and Massachusetts relief does not necessarily remove a federal record or a record that a private entity independently preserved.

Sections 100F through 100J govern time-based expungement. Section 100K governs expungement based on a qualifying error, fraud, false identification, or decriminalized conduct.

Time-Based Expungement Under Sections 100E Through 100J

Time-based expungement covers petitioned offenses committed before the person’s twenty-first birthday. At least three years must have passed for misdemeanor-only records and seven years if any petitioned record includes a felony. The calculation includes connected periods of custody and probation.

The petition may include no more than two records of the applicable type, and multiple charges from one incident count as one record. Other than motor-vehicle matters for which the punishment was no more than a $50 fine, the person may have no other criminal or juvenile court appearances or dispositions in Massachusetts, another state, a United States possession, or federal court. The person must also certify that, to the person’s knowledge, no criminal-justice agency is conducting an active investigation.

Section 100J contains twenty categories excluded from time-based expungement, including offenses involving death or serious bodily injury, offenses committed while armed with a dangerous weapon, sex offenses, OUI, specified firearms and weapons offenses, listed protective-order violations, M.G.L. c. 265, § 13M, and any felony under chapter 265.

The Commissioner of Probation first determines statutory eligibility. If the record is eligible, the Commissioner notifies the district attorney, who may object. The court then decides whether expungement serves the best interests of justice. This procedure often matters to students and young professionals with very limited records from before age twenty-one whose applications require an accurate review of the record. The firm’s student defense FAQs address those disclosure questions.

Reason-Based Expungement Under Section 100K

Section 100K does not impose the age, waiting-period, record-count, or offense-exclusion rules in §§ 100I and 100J. The petitioner must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the record resulted from false identification or identity theft, conduct that is no longer criminal, demonstrable error by law enforcement, a civilian or expert witness, or a court employee, or fraud upon the court.

In Commonwealth v. K.W., 490 Mass. 619 (2022), the Supreme Judicial Court held that a strong presumption favors expungement after the petitioner proves a qualifying ground under § 100K(a) by clear and convincing evidence. Absent a substantial countervailing concern, the judge must grant the petition. This presumption applies only to reason-based expungement under § 100K, not to time-based expungement.

K.W. also limits what the judge may consider. The judge may not weigh the petitioner’s other criminal records against expungement of the qualifying record, and the petitioner need not prove the particular disadvantage required for sealing a dismissal under § 100C. The court must hold a hearing if the petitioner or district attorney requests one. If the judge denies an otherwise qualifying petition because of a substantial countervailing concern, the judge must enter written findings that identify the concern and explain the denial. If the judge grants expungement, § 100K requires written findings of fact.

M.G.L. c. 276, § 100K 1/4 separately requires expungement of specified marijuana possession, cultivation, possession with intent to distribute, and distribution records based on amounts later decriminalized by the statutes identified in that provision.

Noncitizens should obtain immigration advice before filing either type of petition because federal immigration law applies its own definition of conviction and does not necessarily treat Massachusetts record relief as eliminating the disposition. The firm’s page on immigration consequences explains that distinction. When a court accepted an older plea without the required immigration warning, a motion under the SJC’s Chhieng decision may address the conviction more directly than sealing or expungement.

Convictions Excluded From Section 100A Sealing

M.G.L. c. 276, § 100A excludes convictions under M.G.L. c. 140, §§ 121 through 131H, which cover specified firearms laws, and convictions under chapters 268 and 268A, which cover crimes against public justice and public-employee ethics offenses. Resisting arrest is an express exception, and the Commissioner may seal that conviction after the applicable waiting period.

A sex offense cannot be sealed while a registration duty continues, and a person whom the Sex Offender Registry Board has ever classified as a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender cannot seal the sex offense under § 100A. The current statute does not categorically exclude murder by name. These conviction-sealing exclusions do not decide whether a non-conviction disposition may be sealed under § 100C or whether a separate § 100K ground permits reason-based expungement.

Employment, Licensing, and Education Questions

Private employers, licensing boards, schools, federal agencies, security-clearance authorities, and immigration agencies may ask different questions and may have different access to sealed records. For inquiries governed by the Massachusetts sealing statutes, a person with a sealed record generally may answer “no record.” A board or federal agency may apply a different disclosure rule or ask about the underlying conduct.

The firm’s pages for licensed professionals, professional-license consequences, and student defense explain those differences. Expungement erases the covered Massachusetts state and local records, but federal agencies, civil registries, and private background-screening companies may continue to maintain separate records.

FBI Rap Sheets and Federal Background Checks

A Massachusetts order to seal or expunge controls the Massachusetts records covered by the order. The FBI creates a separate Identity History Summary from fingerprint submissions. M.G.L. c. 22C, § 36 requires Massachusetts to transmit case dispositions and sealing or expungement orders when Massachusetts previously transmitted fingerprints to the FBI. M.G.L. c. 276, § 100T also requires notice to the FBI and the United States Department of Justice and a request that the corresponding federal record be sealed or expunged. A Massachusetts judge cannot command a federal court or federal agency to change an independently maintained record.

A federal background check displays the information that Massachusetts and other agencies transmitted to the federal system. It may remain incomplete if Massachusetts never transmitted the later disposition or sealing or expungement order. Federal employment, immigration, security-clearance, and regulated-industry applications may also ask questions broader than a Massachusetts CORI inquiry. The applicant must answer from the actual federal record and the rule governing the application, not from an assumption that a state order is either invisible or automatically controlling.

A person may obtain an FBI Identity History Summary under 28 C.F.R. § 16.32. If the entry is incomplete or inaccurate, 28 C.F.R. § 16.34 provides a correction procedure involving the agency that contributed the information. A person may need certified Massachusetts disposition and record-order documents to establish the requested update. The firm’s page on Massachusetts sealing orders and federal criminal records explains that procedure.

Sealing a Massachusetts record does not remove news coverage or every record that a private source lawfully retained. The criminal-record expungement statutes do not cover information stored in the statewide 209A and 258E domestic-violence record-keeping system. The firm’s page on Massachusetts domestic-violence records, CORI, and the statewide registry explains that distinction.

Preventing a CORI Entry Before Arraignment

Preventing arraignment ordinarily prevents a CORI entry from that complaint application. When a clerk-magistrate denies an eligible complaint application, that application produces no criminal complaint, arraignment, or CORI entry. If the court dismisses a complaint before arraignment, the case may also avoid a CORI entry from that complaint.

Stopping a complaint before arraignment does not erase police reports, arrest information, fingerprint records, school files, licensing records, or information that federal or immigration agencies already possess. Serpa Law Office represents clients at eligible prearraignment clerk-magistrate hearings and seeks denial of the complaint application before a public criminal case begins. The firm’s page on how Massachusetts criminal cases can be dismissed or stopped before trial explains the available procedures, and the firm’s case results include complaint applications denied before arraignment.

These standards apply to criminal records. Courts keep 209A and 258E restraining-order records in a separate statewide civil registry. The § 100A waiting periods, § 100C good-cause standard, and § 100K grounds do not govern that registry. The firm’s page on expunging a 209A or 258E order from the registry explains the fraud-on-the-court standard for removing a civil-order entry.

Related Serpa Law Office Resources

• Sealing and Expunging a Massachusetts Criminal Record
• Sealing Dismissals and CWOFs in Massachusetts: A Practitioner’s Guide
• How Massachusetts Judges Decide Sealing and Expungement Petitions
• Sealing and Expungement FAQs
• Your Massachusetts Criminal Record and CORI
• The Gravito Decision on Sealed-Record Access
• Clerk-Magistrate Hearings in Massachusetts
• Continuance Without a Finding, Pretrial Probation, and Diversion

Contact Serpa Law Office at 617.936.0201 or contact the firm online for a confidential consultation. The Boston office is at 20 Park Plaza, Suite 400A. The Quincy office is at 500 Victory Road, Suite 400A. The firm is available 24 hours a day.