State v. Clemens

A “criminal case” as used in Iowa’s recently enacted expungement law, Iowa Code 901C.2, refers to a single numbered legal proceeding.In 2011, Defendant was charged with several aggravated misdemeanors in a single trial information. At the same time, he was separately charged by criminal complaint with a single misdemeanor. Defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser included offense of one count of the trial information, and all other charges, including the simple misdemeanor criminal complaint, were dismissed. In 2016, Defendant sought expungement of the record of the dismissed simple misdemeanor complaint. The magistrate and district court denied relief, concluding that the misdemeanor and the offense to which Defendant had pled guilty in the trial information comprised a single criminal case within the meaning of section 901C.2(1)(a)(1) because they were factually related. The Supreme Court reversed the district court’s judgment denying expungement, holding that Defendant was entitled to expungement of the record of the dismissed simple misdemeanor complaint. View "State v. Clemens" on Justia Law