In Maryland, the felonies that cannot be expunged are, in short, almost all of them. The state uses a closed eligibility list: Criminal Procedure § 10-110 names the specific felony convictions that qualify for expungement, and every felony conviction outside that list is permanently ineligible, no matter how much time has passed or how clean your record has been since.1Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Procedure Code 10-110 – Petition for Expungement of Conviction That default of ineligibility is the opposite of how most states structure expungement, and it catches a lot of Marylanders by surprise.
The practical way to figure out where you stand is to check your conviction against the short eligible list first. If it isn’t there, there is no path to expungement.
The Short List of Felonies That Can Be Expunged
Only a handful of felonies qualify under § 10-110:
- Felony theft
- Possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance
- Burglary in the first, second, or third degree
- Domestically related crimes
- Attempts, conspiracies, and solicitations tied to any of the above
Even for these, you have to wait years after finishing every piece of your sentence — prison, parole, probation, and mandatory supervision — before you can file. The waits run seven years for possession with intent and third-degree burglary, ten years for felony theft and first- or second-degree burglary, and fifteen years for domestically related felonies.2Maryland Courts. List of Expungeable Charges Under Criminal Procedure 10-1103Maryland Courts. Expungement – Effective October 1, 2018
Everything that follows is what sits outside that list.
Crimes of Violence
The largest category of permanently ineligible felonies is Maryland’s statutory “crimes of violence,” defined in Criminal Law § 14-101. None of them appear on the § 10-110 eligible list, so none can ever be expunged. The statute reaches 26 categories of offenses, well beyond the obvious ones.4Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Law Code 14-101 – Mandatory Sentences
They include:
- Murder and manslaughter, except involuntary manslaughter
- Rape, first-degree sexual offense, second-degree sexual offense, sexual abuse of a minor meeting specific age and conduct thresholds, and continuing course of conduct with a child
- First-degree assault, assault with intent to murder, assault with intent to rape, assault with intent to rob, and assault with intent to commit a first- or second-degree sexual offense
- Robbery, carjacking, and armed carjacking
- Abduction and kidnapping
- First-degree arson, home invasion, and use of a firearm during a felony
- Mayhem, first-degree child abuse, and felony human trafficking offenses under Title 3, Subtitle 11 of the Criminal Law Article
An attempt to commit any crime of violence is itself a crime of violence, and equally ineligible.4Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Law Code 14-101 – Mandatory Sentences
Other Felonies That Fall Outside the Eligible List
Because the eligibility list is closed, plenty of non-violent felonies are also permanently off-limits. Some of the ones that regularly surprise people:
- Most drug felonies other than possession with intent. Operating as a drug kingpin, acting as a volume dealer, and drug-induced homicide are not on the eligible list.
- Any felony that triggers sex offender registration. These convictions are absent from § 10-110, which creates a permanent bar.
- Felony abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult.
- Most felony fraud, embezzlement, and forgery convictions that don’t fall under the felony theft statute.
- Felony weapons charges beyond the ones specifically listed in § 10-110.
In many other states, a non-violent felony like serious fraud or a higher-level drug offense will eventually reach an expungement window. In Maryland, if the offense isn’t named on the short list, no amount of time or rehabilitation opens one.1Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Procedure Code 10-110 – Petition for Expungement of Conviction
How One Ineligible Charge Blocks the Rest
Maryland treats all charges arising from the same case or incident as a single unit for expungement. If any one conviction in that unit is ineligible, none of the convictions in the unit can be expunged.5Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Procedure Code 10-110
Picture a case that produced convictions for robbery and misdemeanor theft. The theft would ordinarily qualify, but robbery is a crime of violence, so the whole unit is locked in. You cannot pick out the lesser charge and expunge it on its own. For people with multi-count cases, this is often the real reason an otherwise eligible conviction stays on the record.
New Convictions and Pending Cases
Two more situations can turn a technically eligible felony into one you can’t expunge.
A new criminal conviction during the waiting period strips the original conviction of its eligibility, unless that new conviction is itself expungement-eligible. Minor traffic violations that carry no jail time are the only exception.5Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Procedure Code 10-110
A pending criminal case is also an automatic bar. A court cannot grant an expungement petition while you are a defendant in any open criminal proceeding, related or not.5Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Criminal Procedure Code 10-110 The pending matter has to be resolved before the petition can move.
Where Even a Granted Expungement Won’t Help
Two contexts matter here because an expungement under Maryland law does not reach them, and assuming otherwise can cause real damage.
Federal Security Clearances
The Standard Form 86 used for federal security clearance applications requires you to report criminal history whether or not the record was sealed or expunged under state law. The instructions for the criminal conduct section say so explicitly, with a narrow exception for certain federal controlled substances convictions expunged under a specific federal statute. Failing to disclose an expunged Maryland conviction on the SF-86 can be treated as deliberate falsification, which on its own can result in clearance denial even when the underlying offense wouldn’t have been disqualifying.
Immigration
Federal immigration law uses its own definition of “conviction,” broader than Maryland’s. A conviction exists whenever a court or jury found the person guilty, or the person pleaded guilty, and the judge imposed any punishment or restraint on liberty. A Maryland expungement does not erase that conviction for immigration purposes.6U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors
USCIS policy is explicit that an expunged conviction for a controlled substance violation or a crime involving moral turpitude still counts as a conviction in the immigration context, and the Board of Immigration Appeals has held that a state court action dismissing, vacating, or expunging a guilty plea through a rehabilitative statute has no effect on removing the conviction for immigration purposes.6U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors If you are not a U.S. citizen and you have a Maryland felony conviction, talk to an immigration attorney before treating a state expungement as the end of your exposure.