News Archive

IU McKinney’s Civil Practice Clinic has been successful in advocating on behalf of another client seeking expungement. The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the trial court’s ruling in the case, Deon Willford v. State of Indiana, meaning that Willford may pursue his petition for expungement. The opinion, which specifically mentions the clinic and its work, was issued December 6. The clinic has been invited to make appearances as amicus four times, and Professor Carrie Hagan and her students have been successful each time.

Willford deals with expungement of a high-level felony where, based on the type of felony, the petition may need to seek consent from the State before they are allowed to file for expungement. Generally, in Indiana, there are five categories of expungement and the most difficult are higher-level felonies of two types. Category 4 is the second highest level of expungement. Felonies that are A, B, or C (or F1, F2, F3, F4, or F5 under the new classifications) where there is no serious bodily injury fall into Category 4. Category 5 is the highest level of expungement and encompasses all the same categories of felonies where there is serious bodily injury. In this category, the person must receive permission from the prosecutor in the county where the conviction took place and if the prosecutor does not consent, the petitioner may not file. For both categories, even if the court grants an expungement, the conviction still appears on the person’s record “marked as expunged.”

Willford was convicted of a high-level felony, but he was not convicted of a crime which included serious bodily injury. As such, Willford, his attorneys and the Civil Practice clinic argue that this placed his conviction in Category 4, requiring eight years to pass from the date of a person’s most-recent conviction before a person may petition the court for expungement and not requiring consent from the state to file. When he filed for expungement, Willford filed as Category 4. In response, the Marion County prosecutor, where the conviction happened, argued it should have been filed as a Category 5 due to the inclusion of a charge of bodily injury (which did not result in conviction). At a hearing on the state’s response, the trial court stated that if it found serious bodily injury in the underlying cause that the prosecutor’s consent would be required. In its order, the court found Willford was allowed to proceed with the expungement of his other convictions but that since “ordinary injury” was also alleged, he would need the state’s consent to proceed with the expungement of the felony.

The clinic, as part of its work during the academic year, routinely checks for appeals that are filed relating to expungements. If there is an appeal that presents an issue that the students believe merits attention, the class works together to reason through the issue, what arguments need to be made and what impact their work could have for their clients going forward. For the Willford appeal, the clinic was actually contacted by a former Civil Practice Clinic student, Evan Strater, J.D. ’19, who asked for the clinic’s take on the case having learned of the clinic’s prior work as amicus. After working through whether appearing as amicus would make sense, clinic student Anna Cron took on responsibility for writing the brief, and Brittany Roberts assisted with reasoning and all technical aspects of the filings. Once drafts of the brief were prepared, the entire class reviewed and provided comments and suggestions, along with another former clinic student, Katelyn Juerling, J.D. ’16, who ended up signing on with the clinic as co-counsel for the amicus brief.