Setting Aside A Conviction
MCL 780.621 — expungement, by application or on its own
Michigan's statute calls expungement setting aside. A person convicted of 1 or more offenses, but not more than 3 felonies in total, may apply to the convicting court to set aside all of their Michigan convictions, with two limits: not more than 2 convictions for an assaultive crime in a lifetime, and not more than 1 felony conviction for the same offense if that offense is punishable by more than 10 years.
| Setting aside | Earliest filing, counted from the last of sentencing, probation, parole or prison |
|---|---|
| Setting asideMore than 1 felony | Earliest filing, counted from the last of sentencing, probation, parole or prison7 years |
| Setting aside1 felony, serious misdemeanors, or 1 first offense operating while intoxicated | Earliest filing, counted from the last of sentencing, probation, parole or prison5 years |
| Setting asideOther misdemeanors, not including assaultive crimes | Earliest filing, counted from the last of sentencing, probation, parole or prison3 years |
The court may not enter the order unless the waiting period has run, no criminal charges are pending, and there has been no new conviction during that period. The application is signed under oath with a certified record of each conviction, and a copy goes to the state police with 1 set of fingerprints and a $50 fee. It is served on the attorney general and the prosecutor, who may contest it, and a victim of an assaultive crime or serious misdemeanor is notified and may speak.
The statute calls it a privilege, not a right. The court may set a conviction aside if it finds the applicant's circumstances and behavior since the conviction warrant it and that it is consistent with the public welfare. After a denial, another petition on the same conviction waits 3 years unless the order sets an earlier date.
Some convictions cannot be set aside at all, by application or automatically:
- A felony punishable by life imprisonment, or an attempt at one.
- The specific offenses the section lists by number, among them several criminal sexual conduct offenses.
- Operating while intoxicated, except a first offense where the person has not already had one set aside.
- A traffic offense that caused injury or death, and a traffic offense by a commercial license holder in a commercial vehicle.
- A felony domestic violence conviction after an earlier misdemeanor domestic violence conviction.
- Human trafficking offenses, and the other chapters the section names.
A later section sets some convictions aside with no application at all: a misdemeanor punishable by not more than 92 days, and other eligible misdemeanors, 7 years after sentencing; an eligible felony 10 years after sentencing or release from prison, whichever is later. That route excludes assaultive crimes, serious misdemeanors, crimes of dishonesty and offenses punishable by 10 or more years, among others, and has a lifetime cap of 2 felonies and 4 misdemeanors, with the 92 day misdemeanors not counted toward it.
Once a conviction is set aside, the person is considered, for purposes of the law, not to have been previously convicted, with the exceptions the act lists: fines and costs already paid are not refunded, restitution is still owed, sex offender registration still applies to a listed offense, and the conviction can still count as a prior offense for charging or sentencing a later crime. A traffic conviction that is set aside stays on the Secretary of State driving record.
The automatic route was added in 2020 (Act 193, in effect April 11, 2021), runs from 2 years after that date, and is subject to funding. Which misdemeanors are serious ones, and which offenses are assaultive, are defined by reference to other acts that are not covered on this page.
Sources for this section (5)
- MCL 780.621 — Application to set aside a conviction
- MCL 780.621d — Waiting periods and procedure for setting aside a conviction
- MCL 780.621g — Convictions set aside without an application
- MCL 780.622 — The effect of an order setting aside a conviction
- MCL 780.621c — Convictions that may not be set aside
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Michigan attorney.