Confusion over prolonged expungement wait times that Indiana’s longest-serving judge called “unjust” was settled Wednesday when the Indiana Supreme Court declared a new law that eliminated the confusion applies retroactively.
In a 4-1 ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court ordered the Elkhart Superior Court to grant the expungement that N. G. has sought beginning in 2018. He had been convicted 13 years earlier of Class D felony theft, but because the conviction had been reduced to a misdemeanor in 2016, the court reasoned he would have wait for five years from the entry of the reduced conviction to qualify for an expungement.