TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on May 27, 2022

The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is bound by a trial court’s order expunging criminal charges and must comply even if it disagrees with the order. The case involves an unnamed citizen of McNairy County, who negotiated a guilty plea that provided his charges would be expunged if he successfully completed four years of probation. At the end of the probationary period, the court expunged the charges. The plaintiff later learned that the TBI had not removed the records because it believed the charges were “ineligible for expungement.” The Supreme Court found that the TBI lacked authority to refuse to comply since under the state’s expungement statutes, it is the trial courts — not the TBI — that decide whether an offense is eligible for expungement. Read more from the court.