Congratulations to KD&P associate Morgan McPheeters for successfully defending an expunction order obtained by Jeremy Rosenthal, of Rosenthal & Wadas, on behalf of his client in Collin County. The order at issue expunged records relating to an arrest for felony aggravated assault for which the client was subsequently acquitted. The State, claiming that the entire expunction statute is “arrest based,” argued that the records could not be expunged because, when the client was arrested, she was also arrested on a totally unrelated misdemeanor theft charge to which she ultimately pled guilty. In a case of first impression, the court of appeals rejected the State’s “arrest-based” interpretation, concluding that, based on the plain language of article 55.01(a)(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a guilty plea to a wholly unrelated offense does not prohibit the expunction of records related to the acquitted offense, even where the arrest arises out of both. You can read the opinion here.
