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What a Michigan Record Set-Aside Does and Does Not Erase
Michigan’s Clean Slate legislation widened who can clear a criminal record and added a track that operates without an application at all. The word people reach for is expungement, and the statute’s word is setting aside a conviction, which is narrower in ways that matter to anyone planning around it.
MCL 780.622 sets out the limits directly. A set-aside does not entitle the applicant to remission of any fine, cost, or other money paid as a consequence of the conviction, and it does not relieve an obligation to pay restitution owed to a victim or affect a court’s authority to enforce a restitution order.
The Waiting Periods Differ by What Is Being Cleared
An application cannot be filed until a period measured from the last of several events has run, and that period is not the same for every conviction. Under MCL 780.621d, the clock starts at whichever of these happens last: imposition of sentence, completion of probation, discharge from parole, or completion of any term of imprisonment.
Ordinary misdemeanors other than serious misdemeanors, a first-violation operating-while-intoxicated offense, and assaultive misdemeanors run on three years. Serious misdemeanors, one first-violation operating-while-intoxicated offense, and a single felony run on five. An application to set aside more than one felony runs on seven.
The events that start the clock are worth reading closely, because completing probation is often much later than sentencing. A person counting from a plea date will usually be counting from the wrong day, which is covered further on our Michigan Clean Slate Act page.
The Automatic Track Reaches Some Convictions and Not Others
A separate section sets convictions aside without any application. Under MCL 780.621g, a misdemeanor punishable by not more than 92 days is set aside once seven years have passed from the imposition of sentence. Misdemeanors carrying 93 days or more, and felonies, are also reached, at seven and 10 years respectively, subject to conditions.
Those conditions are real limits rather than formalities. No criminal charges may be pending, and the applicant must not have been convicted of any criminal offense during the applicable period. Not more than two felonies and four misdemeanors total may be set aside automatically during a lifetime, and that cap does not apply to the 92-day category.
The automatic track also excludes categories outright, including assaultive crimes, serious misdemeanors, crimes of dishonesty, offenses punishable by 10 or more years, offenses whose elements involve a minor, a vulnerable adult, injury or serious impairment, or death, and human trafficking violations. A conviction outside the automatic track may still be eligible by application.
Five Things a Set-Aside Leaves in Place
The limits in MCL 780.622 are the part most worth reading before anyone plans around a set-aside, because each of them survives the order.
A set-aside conviction for an offense listed under the Sex Offenders Registration Act still counts as a conviction for the purposes of that act. The conviction may still be relied on to bar subsequent proceedings for the same offense. A victim’s right to bring or defend a civil action for damages is unaffected. No right arises to sue for damages for incarceration served before the order. And money already paid stays paid.
None of that makes a set-aside less worth having. It means the order changes what the public record shows and what most background checks reach, rather than unwinding the consequences that already attached.
Two of the five come up constantly in practice. Restitution survives because the obligation runs to the victim rather than to the state, so a payment plan continues on its own terms after the order enters. And a set-aside conviction that is a listed offense under the Sex Offenders Registration Act keeps its registration consequences entirely, which means the relief someone is actually seeking may not be available through this route at all.
An Automatic Set-Aside Can Be Undone
A conviction set aside without an application is not permanently beyond reach. MCL 780.621g(12) provides that a set-aside made under that section is subject to reinstatement under MCL 780.621h, which is a limit that does not attach in the same way to an order entered on a granted application.
The automatic track also involves a consent the statute supplies rather than the individual. A person whose conviction is set aside under that section impliedly consents to the creation of the nonpublic record that replaces the public one.
Neither point argues against the automatic track. They argue for knowing which track a particular conviction is on, because the two produce orders with different durability and different paperwork behind them.
Marijuana Convictions Have Their Own Route
Conduct that would now be lawful under Michigan’s recreational marijuana law is handled separately, under MCL 780.621e, with its own application. That application must give the applicant’s full name and current address and include a certified record of each conviction to be set aside, and a copy must be served on the agency that prosecuted the offense.
Keeping the routes distinct matters at the filing stage. An application under the wrong section is not a stronger application, and the service requirement in the marijuana provision is one that a general expungement petition does not carry.
The arithmetic on the waiting period is usually the first thing to settle, and it is settled from the sentencing and discharge records rather than from memory. If that is where your situation sits, call us at (800) 525-6386.
Working Out What Is Actually Eligible
Most people asking about expungement have a mix of convictions on different tracks with different clocks, and only some of them need an application at all. Sorting which is which is the first thing we do. Record-clearing sits inside our Michigan criminal defense work at Neumann Law Group, across Northern Michigan and statewide. Call our office at (800) 525-6386, or contact us online, and we will talk it through with you.