Arrested but Never Convicted? How to Seal Your Arrest Record in California (PC 851.91)

You were arrested. The charges were dropped, or never filed, or you went to trial and won. You did not get convicted of anything. And yet the arrest is still sitting on your record, and employers and landlords running a background check can see it. That is the problem this fixes. You fill out one form, send a copy to the DA, and in most cases the court has no choice but to seal the arrest.

The short version

The law is Penal Code 851.91. It came from a 2017 bill called the CARE Act and took effect January 1, 2018.

The whole process:

• Fill out form CR-409. It is a Judicial Council form, the same one in every California county. Free to download.
• File it in the court where the case was, or would have been.
• Mail a copy to the DA and to the police agency that arrested you. At least 15 days before the hearing date.
• Go to the hearing, if the court sets one. Often the DA does not oppose and it goes through without argument.
• The court signs an order (form CR-410) and the arrest gets sealed.

The forms: CR-409, the petition, and CR-409-INFO, the instruction sheet. Read the instruction sheet. It is written for people doing this themselves, and it is clear. Both the form and the instruction sheet are published in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese, and the language links are on those same pages.

The most important sentence in the statute

Most legal relief is something you ask a judge to grant as a favor. This one mostly is not.

Penal Code 851.91 says a person who qualifies “is entitled to have his or her arrest sealed as a matter of right.” Those last five words are the whole difference. If you fit the definition and none of the exceptions apply, the judge does not get to weigh whether you deserve it. You met the conditions, so you get the order.

There are exceptions where the judge does have discretion, and I will get to them. But for most people reading this, the answer is: you qualify, and it is not up to anyone’s opinion of you.

Do you qualify? Start here

The test is whether your arrest “did not result in a conviction.” The statute spells out exactly what that means. Any one of these is enough.

• Nothing was ever filed and time ran out. The statute of limitations expired on every offense you were arrested for, and the DA never filed a case.
• Charges were filed and then dismissed, and they cannot be refiled.
• You were acquitted. You went to trial and won.
• You were convicted, but it was thrown out on appeal, appeals are finished, and the charge cannot be refiled.

Notice what is not on that list. You do not have to prove you were innocent. You do not have to show good character. You do not have to wait years. The question is only what happened to the case.

Read more: the exact wording, and the four situations that disqualify you

The definition, from Penal Code 851.91(a)(1). An arrest did not result in a conviction if:

• (A) The statute of limitations has run on every offense the arrest was based on, and the prosecuting attorney who would have had jurisdiction has not filed an accusatory pleading based on the arrest. (“Accusatory pleading” means the document that starts a criminal case, usually a complaint or an information.)
• (B) The prosecutor did file, but as to all charges, one of these happened: no conviction and the charge was dismissed and cannot be refiled; or no conviction and you were acquitted; or a conviction that was vacated or reversed on appeal, with all appellate remedies exhausted and no ability to refile.

The word all matters. If some charges from the same arrest ended in a conviction, this is not your tool.

The four disqualifiers, from Penal Code 851.91(a)(2):

• You can still be charged. If the clock has not run and the DA could still file on any offense from that arrest, you cannot petition yet. This is the one that stops most early filings. Wait for the limitations period.
• Murder, or any offense with no statute of limitations. If any charge from the arrest was one of these, you are out, unless you were acquitted of it or found factually innocent.
• You intentionally dodged prosecution, including by absconding from the jurisdiction. If the reason nothing was filed is that you left, the law does not reward that.
• You dodged prosecution using identity fraud and were later charged with a crime for that fraud.

Two limits the courts have added.

You have to have been arrested, physically. In People v. Hadim (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th Supp. 39, a person who was never physically arrested and instead got a letter from the prosecutor telling him to appear was held ineligible. The statute is about arrests.

And the conviction does not have to be in the same case to disqualify you. In People v. Rifat (2025) 120 Cal.App.5th 915, the first case was dismissed as part of a plea deal in a second case, and the conviction in the second case came out of the same conduct as the first arrest. The court held that arrest was not one that “did not result in a conviction.” So if your case was dismissed as part of a package deal where you pleaded to something else arising from the same events, look closely before you file.

The exception: domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse

There is one place where sealing stops being automatic and becomes the judge’s call.

It happens when two things are both true. The arrest was for domestic violence, child abuse, or elder abuse. And your record shows a pattern of that same type of offense.

In that situation you have to persuade the court that sealing “would serve the interests of justice.”

Both halves have to be true. A single domestic violence arrest with no pattern behind it does not put you here. You are still in matter of right territory.

Read more: what “interests of justice” means, and who has to prove what

The factors. If you are in the discretionary bucket, Penal Code 851.91(b)(2)(B) says the court “may consider any relevant factors, including, but not limited to”:

• Hardship to you caused by the arrest.
• Declarations or evidence about your good character.
• Declarations or evidence about the arrest itself.
• Your record of convictions.

“Including but not limited to” means the list is a floor, not a ceiling. The judge can consider other things.

Practically, this is where you build a file. Letters from employers, proof you lost a job or an apartment over the arrest, program completion certificates, treatment records, anything showing the years since. This is the one version of this petition where who you are now actually matters.

Who carries the burden. Penal Code 851.91(d)(2) sets it up in two steps. You go first: you have to show either that you are entitled as a matter of right, or that sealing serves the interests of justice. Once the court finds you met that burden, it shifts to the DA to give the court a reason not to seal.

That shift matters. It means the DA cannot just show up and object. Once you have made your showing, the burden is theirs.

On appeal, if it comes to that, the reviewing court defers to the trial judge’s factual findings where the evidence supports them, but independently reviews whether you carried your burden (People v. Rifat (2025) 120 Cal.App.5th 915).

Filing it: the steps and the deadlines

Two deadlines, and they are the same number, so they are easy to remember.

File the petition at least 15 days before the hearing. Then serve a copy at least 15 days before the hearing on two people. The prosecuting attorney for the city or county where the arrest happened. And the law enforcement agency that arrested you.

Serving the police agency is the step self filers forget. It is not just the DA. Both.

At the hearing, you, the DA, and the arresting agency through the DA can all present evidence. But it does not have to be live testimony. The statute lets the judge decide it on declarations, affidavits, police reports, copies of your criminal history, or any other material that is relevant and reliable.

That last part is why so many of these never turn into a hearing at all. It is a paper decision. Frequently the DA does not oppose, nobody testifies, and you get an order.

Read more: what the petition has to say, and what happens after the judge signs

The petition (form CR-409) identifies you, the arrest, the agency that arrested you, the charges, and states which route you are on, matter of right or interests of justice. The court’s CR-409-INFO sheet walks through each box. If your county has its own local packet, use it; some courts add a local cover sheet.

What sealing does, under Penal Code 851.92:

• The court gives you and the DA a copy of the order right away.
• Within 30 days the court sends the order to the arresting agency, to any other agency that took part in the arrest, and to the agency that keeps the master local criminal history record.
• Within 30 days the court sends a disposition report to the Department of Justice saying relief was granted, under which code section, and on what date.
• Your local criminal history gets a note right next to the arrest saying “arrest sealed” with the date and the code section. Your state record gets “arrest relief granted.”
• Police investigative reports and court records both get stamped, and the stamp tells anyone who sees it not to release the record outside the criminal justice system. On court records it reads “ARREST SEALED: DO NOT RELEASE OUTSIDE OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SECTOR.” On police reports the statute words it slightly differently, without the “of.”
• The sealed records cannot be released to anyone except you or a criminal justice agency.
• If someone outside the criminal justice system releases them anyway, there are civil penalties, from $500 to $2,500 per violation.

A gap in the system, and it is not obvious. A sealing order under this section is not forwarded to the DOJ to be noted in its fingerprint image or criminal history record systems, and if one is sent, the DOJ does not process it. The note in your state record comes from the disposition report, not from the order itself. This is a real limit on how complete “sealed” is.

What sealing does not do

People are told sealing means the arrest is gone. It is not gone. It is closed to the public, which is a different thing.

• Police, prosecutors and courts still see it and still use it. They can keep accessing it and sharing it with each other. They can even discuss it in open court and in unsealed filings, exactly as if it had never been sealed.
• It can be used against you in a future case. A sealed arrest may be pleaded and proved in a later prosecution for another offense, with the same effect as if it had not been sealed (People v. D.C. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 727).
• It does not undo a bar on holding public office that would apply because of the arrest (also People v. D.C.).
• It is not a finding that you were innocent. Sealing says the case did not end in a conviction. If you want a court to say you did not do it, that is a different petition, described below.
• The private background check industry is a separate problem. The court order reaches government records. Commercial databases that already scraped and resold your arrest are not automatically cleaned by the order. You may have to send them the order yourself.

You may already have relief and not know it

Penal Code 851.93 is the automatic version. No petition, no court, no filing fee, nobody to persuade.

Every month the DOJ reviews the statewide criminal justice databases, finds records that qualify, and grants relief on its own. This has been operating since October 1, 2024. It covers arrests going back to January 1, 1973.

Roughly, it reaches:

• Misdemeanor arrests where the charge was dismissed.
• Misdemeanor arrests where nothing was ever filed, at least one year has passed since the arrest, and there was no conviction, or you were acquitted.
• Felony arrests where nothing was ever filed, at least three years have passed (six years for offenses punishable by eight or more years), and there was no conviction, or you were acquitted.
• People who completed certain diversion programs.

When relief is granted, your state record gets marked “arrest relief granted.” The arrest is deemed not to have occurred. You are released from the penalties and disabilities that came from it, and you can answer questions about it accordingly.

Read more: the limits on automatic relief

Automatic relief under Penal Code 851.93 does not:

• Relieve a person applying to be a peace officer of the duty to disclose the arrest.
• Restore firearm rights.
• Affect a prohibition on holding public office that applies because of the arrest.
• Stop a prosecution that is still within the statute of limitations.
• Cut off criminal justice agency access to the record.

And it does not replace the petition. The statute says expressly that it does not limit the availability of a petition under Penal Code 851.91.

There is a hole in how this works. The DOJ grants relief “based on information in the state summary criminal history repository,” and only if the relevant information is actually in its electronic records. Older records, records with a disposition that never got reported, and paper era arrests are exactly the ones most likely to be missing. Which means the arrests least likely to get automatic relief are frequently the oldest ones, the ones causing problems the longest. If yours is old, do not wait for the DOJ to find it.

Sealing versus a finding of factual innocence

There is a second, stronger tool. It is harder to get, and you should know what it is before you choose.

Penal Code 851.8 is the factual innocence petition. It does not just seal the records. It seals them and then has them destroyed, and you get a written declaration of exoneration.

The price is the standard. You have to show that no reasonable cause exists to believe you committed the offense. Courts have been clear that this means more than having a good defense. As one put it, the question is not whether you had a viable defense but “more fundamentally that there was no reasonable cause to arrest him in the first place” (People v. Gerold (2009) 174 Cal.App.4th 781). It is meant for people who did not commit a crime.

There is also a time limit. Generally two years from the arrest or the filing of charges, though a court can waive it for good cause.

What you prove	851.91: the case did not end in a conviction. 851.8: no reasonable cause to believe you did it.
How hard	851.91: usually automatic. 851.8: hard.
Deadline	851.91: none. 851.8: generally two years, waivable for good cause.
What you get	851.91: records sealed, still visible to police and courts. 851.8: records sealed then destroyed, plus a declaration of exoneration.
Where you start	851.91: superior court, 15 days notice. 851.8: can start with a petition to the arresting agency, then court.

The practical answer for most people: file the 851.91 petition. It is the one you will win. Consider 851.8 if you were genuinely arrested for something you had nothing to do with, it was recent, and you can show the arrest never had a basis. Talk to a lawyer before choosing, because a denied factual innocence petition is a court record too.

What trips people up

• Most people do not know an arrest without a conviction shows up at all. There is no notice, no letter, nothing telling you it is there. The first sign is usually a background check going wrong, and by then it has already cost something.
• Filing too early is the most common way this fails. Someone is arrested, hears nothing for a few months, assumes it went away, and files. But if the statute of limitations has not run, the DA could still file, and that is one of the four disqualifiers. The petition fails on timing, not on anything about the person.
• In a matter of right case there is not much for the DA to oppose. That is the design of the statute. If the case ended without a conviction and none of the four disqualifiers apply, the court has no discretion to weigh. So there is no argument to make about whether you deserve it.
• The pattern cases are the contested ones. That is where the statute puts the judge’s discretion, so that is where there is something to litigate. If your arrest was for domestic violence, child abuse or elder abuse and your record hits the pattern numbers, do not walk in with nothing but the form.
• Bring paper to a discretionary hearing. Hardship is a listed factor and most people only describe it out loud. A termination letter, a denied rental application, a revoked license opportunity, in writing, does work that talking does not.
• Time matters in the discretionary cases, and not at all in the others. These two get run together, and this is the opposite of how expungement works. If you are in the matter of right lane, how long ago the arrest happened is irrelevant. You do not have to wait, and waiting gains you nothing. If you are in the discretionary lane, a clean stretch since the arrest is one of the better things you can show.
• Sending the order out yourself is the last step, and it is the one people skip. A signed order does not clean the commercial databases. Keep certified copies and send them to whoever reported the arrest.
• Pull your DOJ record first, every time. A few weeks, and it tells you whether you have a problem, what the problem is, and whether the DOJ already fixed it.

Do I need a lawyer?

For a straightforward matter of right petition, no. This is one of the better do it yourself filings in California criminal law. The form is standardized, the instruction sheet is written for non lawyers, and the court has to grant it if you qualify. Plenty of people do this alone and it works.

Get help if you are in the discretionary bucket, meaning a domestic violence, child abuse or elder abuse arrest with a pattern in your history. That hearing is contested, the DA will likely oppose, and how the evidence gets put together decides it.

Also get help in three other situations. If you are not sure whether you can still be charged. If your dismissal came as part of a plea deal in another case (see Rifat above). Or if you are weighing a factual innocence petition instead.

And if what you have is a conviction rather than an arrest, this is not your tool. Start with our guide to expungement under Penal Code 1203.4, or run your case through the expungement checker.

Last reviewed: August 2026

This is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a California attorney about your situation.