Did California's Clean Slate Act Clear Your Record? How to Find Out

Say you've just been offered a job at a hospital in Northridge, contingent on a fingerprint background check, and you remember reading somewhere that California clears old records on its own now. Your 2017 misdemeanor is long behind you, but you have no idea whether anyone ever did anything about it, and the fingerprint appointment is on Thursday.

Here's the short answer. Your record may already have received what the law calls "relief," which limits who can see an old case, but nobody will tell you either way. Under the laws people call California's Clean Slate Act (Penal Code sections 851.93 and 1203.425), the Department of Justice reviews its records every month and marks eligible convictions "relief granted" and eligible arrests "arrest relief granted," without notifying you. To know, you request your own record and check with the court.

Here's how to check, in the order you'd actually do it.

What is the Clean Slate Act in California?

California's "Clean Slate" relief is really two statutes: the conviction statute (section 1203.425) and the arrest statute (section 851.93). Every month, the Department of Justice reviews statewide criminal records and marks the entries that meet those statutes' conditions as relieved, with no petition needed from you.

The catch is that the statute grants relief "if the relevant information is present in the department's electronic records." The review reads the Department's database, not your court file. So if that database is missing the outcome of your case, or can't confirm you finished probation, the review has nothing to act on, month after month, until someone fixes the data.

Is automatic relief the same as expungement?

No. The Department says automatic record relief "is not a dismissal, sealing or expungement" of your state record, and the arrest or conviction stays on it. What changes is who gets to see it: once an entry is relieved, it's disclosed in response to a fingerprint background check only where specific provisions of Penal Code section 11105 permit it. (If you were hoping for the word "erased," California's record laws will disappoint you; they much prefer the word "relief.")

Conviction relief has conditions, too. You still have to disclose the conviction if you're asked directly on an application to become a peace officer or to hold public office, and the relief doesn't restore firearm rights the conviction took away. The conviction can also still be used against you as a prior if you're charged with a new offense, so a relieved DUI still counts if you're charged with another (see whether a DUI can be expunged in California). The 1203.4 article explains the other limits, including how employers and licensing boards must treat a relieved conviction.

For private background checks, the court half of the system often matters more. Each month the Department sends the superior court a list of relieved cases. Since January 1, 2023, the court "shall not disclose information concerning a conviction granted relief" from any record it still keeps to anyone except you or a criminal justice agency, and a similar rule covers relieved arrests. The Department notes that commercial background check companies don't use its records, so the court side is what keeps a relieved case off many private screening reports. That's why you'll check both.

Which convictions qualify for automatic relief?

Before the statute looks at the conviction, it looks at you, and any one of these rules you out:

• You're required to register under the Sex Offender Registration Act.
• You have an active local, state, or federal supervision record in the Department's Supervised Release File.
• The Department's records suggest you're currently serving a sentence or have charges pending.

That's true for every conviction, however old or minor. Someone on parole for a recent case would likely have an active supervision record, so even an old misdemeanor won't be relieved while it lasts.

Clear those, and a conviction from January 1, 1973, or later can qualify on one of three tracks, depending on how you were sentenced:

Notice the word "appear," because each track turns on what the Department's records show. Say you pleaded to a misdemeanor in Van Nuys in 2017, got three years of probation, and finished without a violation. That's the probation track, with no extra wait. But if the Department never received the entry showing your probation ended, the review can't tell you finished, and the "relief granted" note may never appear.

Does California's Clean Slate Act apply to felonies?

Yes, but not to all of them. The four-year felony track excludes serious felonies, violent felonies, and felonies requiring sex-offender registration, as the Penal Code defines each, however much time passes. Probation works differently. On the statute's plain terms, a felony that ended in probation you completed without revocation can qualify under the probation track even if it's serious or violent. Anyone required to register is still shut out, though, and the objection procedure below still applies.

The four-year felony track has been in effect since October 1, 2024. But the conviction statute runs the monthly review "subject to an appropriation in the annual Budget Act," meaning it depends on money in each year's state budget, which is one more reason to check rather than assume.

Which arrests qualify for automatic relief?

An arrest from January 1, 1973, or later can qualify if it didn't lead to a conviction or ended in completed diversion. Any one of these is enough:

• Misdemeanor arrest, charge dismissed.
• Misdemeanor arrest, no case filed. Nothing shows criminal proceedings were started, at least one calendar year has passed since the arrest, and no conviction occurred, or you were acquitted of any charges from that arrest.
• Felony arrest, no case filed. The same, but after at least three calendar years, or six if the offense is punishable by eight years or more in state prison or under Penal Code section 1170(h).
• Completed diversion in a prosecutor's prefiling program, court drug diversion or deferred entry of judgment, or another diversion program the statute lists.

Picture someone arrested in Burbank in 2020 on suspicion of felony vandalism, where the DA never filed anything. By 2023 the three-year wait had run, so this is the kind of arrest the review is meant to reach, as long as the Department's file shows no case was filed. Relief means the arrest "is deemed not to have occurred," subject to conditions, two of which matter here: you still have to disclose it if asked directly on an application to become a peace officer, and a district attorney can still prosecute the offense if the statute of limitations hasn't run.

Now notice what the list leaves out. A felony arrest that led to charges that were later dismissed doesn't fit on a plain reading, because the dismissed-charge condition covers only misdemeanor arrests and the felony condition covers arrests where no case was filed or where you were acquitted. That kind of arrest generally needs a petition instead, covered in the article on sealing a California arrest that didn't lead to a conviction. From October 1, 2029, a 2026 law, SB 1342 (Stats. 2026, ch. 702), extends automatic relief to felony arrests where every charge was dismissed, one year after the last dismissal, as long as no charge was refiled or is pending.

Could a prosecutor or probation have blocked it?

For convictions, yes, but only through a court hearing you must be notified of; arrest relief has no comparable procedure. The prosecutor or probation department would have to file a petition no later than 90 calendar days before you'd become eligible, showing that relief "would pose a substantial threat to the public safety." The court must then notify you and hold a hearing, though if you've moved since the case, the notice may not have reached you. If the court grants their petition, the Department won't grant automatic relief. You may still be eligible to petition under sections 1203.4, 1203.4a, 1203.4b, or 1203.41, though, and the Department must record any relief a court later grants.

How do I find out if my record was cleared automatically?

Request your own record from the Department of Justice, a process it calls a record review. It's the only way to see the state record that a fingerprint background check reads. You can name someone else to receive the copy, as long as the request is yours; the Department won't process a request a third party starts for you, and the copy can't be used for visa, immigration, or foreign-government purposes.

In California, the Department's "Criminal Records - Request Your Own" page lays out the steps:

1. Download form BCIA 8016RR from oag.ca.gov, and mark "Record Review" as both the type of application and the reason for it.
2. Fill in all of your personal information; the form warns that missing information can delay or cause rejection of the request.
3. Take it to a Live Scan site, where your fingerprints are taken digitally, available at most local police departments and sheriff's offices and at public sites the Department lists with fees and payment methods.

You'll pay the Department's processing fee and the site's own fee, both of which vary and can change, and the same page explains that you may be eligible to apply for a waiver of the Department's fee. Outside California, the same page explains a mail-in process using a fingerprint card (FD-258) and form BCIA 8705.

What should you look for when your record arrives?

Relief is granted entry by entry, so one record can show relieved and unrelieved events side by side. Check each arrest and conviction for three things.

First, the note. A relieved conviction should say "relief granted" with a date and section 1203.425; a relieved arrest, "arrest relief granted" with a date and section 851.93. If it's there, the Department has done its part, and the entry still appearing is expected, not a failure.

Second, if there's no note, the disposition (the record's word for how the case ended). An arrest with no recorded outcome, or a conviction with no sentence or probation end date, is the gap the review can't get past. Compare it with your minute order, dismissal, or probation discharge. In the Van Nuys example, a probation grant with nothing about probation ending is probably your answer.

Third, the dates. A misdemeanor judgment from eight months ago may not be eligible yet, and no paperwork speeds up the calendar.

If something is wrong or missing, use the Claim of Alleged Inaccuracy or Incompleteness (form BCIA 8706) that the Department includes with any record review response containing criminal history. Mail it back with a copy of the record, the specific error, and proof such as a certified court disposition. The Department checks the entry against the source document, corrects it if they don't match, and refers the question to the agency that supplied the information if the source document itself is in doubt (Penal Code section 11126).

That route has one limit: the administrative hearing normally available when a claim is rejected doesn't apply to claims based on automatic relief. If the real dispute is whether you qualified, rather than a data error, a court petition is often more direct, because a judge can rule on your case and the Department must record any relief the court grants.

Do you have to do anything to get automatic relief?

According to the Department, no: records are reviewed every month on an ongoing basis, and no further action is needed. But waiting only helps if the information the Department needs is already in its file, and a missing disposition doesn't fix itself.

How do you check whether the court record was updated?

The court's file is separate from the Department's record, so confirming one tells you nothing about the other. The Department's guidance is to contact the superior court in the county that handled the case. Because the court may still disclose a relieved conviction to you, you can ask the criminal clerk, with your case number if you have it, whether the court received the Department's relief notice and whether the case is now withheld from public searches and record requests.

One thing catches people here. The Department tells courts that convictions "cannot be dismissed based on the automatic record relief lists provided to the court," so the court file may show restricted disclosure without a dismissal order. The statute does describe automatic relief as including dismissal of a conviction, but in practice you won't have a signed court order unless a judge grants a petition. If an employer, licensing agency, or other office wants proof of dismissal, your record review notation may or may not satisfy them, so find out before an application is due.

What if relief didn't happen, or doesn't apply to you?

Automatic relief never closes off your other options. The conviction statute doesn't limit petitions or motions under other laws, and the arrest statute preserves arrest-relief petitions under other laws, including sealing under section 851.91. Your record review tells you which route to look at first:

If you're required to register as a sex offender, start with whether a plea puts you on California's sex-offender registry and for how long. For an older felony that no dismissal statute seems to fit, California certificates of rehabilitation and pardons are a different, longer-term route.

What to do next

If you're the person with the Thursday fingerprint appointment, the order is simple: request your record review, read each entry for the note, call the court clerk, and only then decide whether to file anything. Keep your case numbers, minute orders, and probation paperwork together, because those documents usually settle the question.

If the record shows gaps you can't explain, or you're not sure which petition fits your sentence, the firm's record clearing practice handles 1203.4 petitions, sealing, and related relief. The firm's attorney, Knarik Boyadzhyan, a former Deputy Public Defender, can go through the Department's record and the court docket with you to sort out which entries were relieved, so bring what you have to a consultation.

Official sources

• California Department of Justice: Automatic Record Relief, Penal Code sections 851.93 and 1203.425 (opens in a new window)
• California Department of Justice: Criminal Records, Request Your Own (opens in a new window)
• California Department of Justice: Form BCIA 8016RR, Request for Live Scan Service (Record Review or Foreign Adoption), Rev. 03/2024 (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 1203.425 (automatic conviction record relief) (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 851.93 (automatic arrest record relief) (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 11105, subdivisions (k) through (p) (when a relieved entry may be disclosed in a fingerprint background check) (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 11121 (purpose of record review) (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 11122 (application and fingerprints) (opens in a new window)
• California Penal Code § 11126 (challenging the record) (opens in a new window)
• California Senate Bill 1342 (Stats. 2026, ch. 702) (automatic relief for felony arrests with all charges dismissed, from October 1, 2029) (opens in a new window)