Saturday, June 2, 2007

Bad Expunction Law

Recently the Texas Supreme Court decided the case of State v. Beam. Beam is more bad law for clients who have been charged with misdemeanor offenses is Texas. The Court ruled that a dismissed misdemeanor case cannot be expunged until the statute of limitations period expires. The limitations period for misdemeanor offenses is two years. Consequently, people whom the Bryan/College Station Expunction Attorney represents, whose misdemeanor cases are dismissed, must wait until two years after the alleged offense (according to Article 12.02 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure) to get their records cleared.

Because of Beam, the Texas Legislature must step in to fix the problem created by the Texas Court. There may be some hope the Legislature can, and will, straighten it out. My recommendation is contact your State representative and ask them to sponsor a bill to correct the problem created in Beam. That is, ask them to support a bill amending Article 55 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure to permit dismissed misdemeanor cases to be expunged immediately.

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