Sealing a record you assumed was permanent

A client came in last year about something unrelated and mentioned, almost in passing, a case from more than a decade ago that keeps surfacing on employment checks. It had been dismissed. She had assumed for fourteen years that a dismissed case simply stays visible forever.

It does not. Under C.R.S. 24-72-705 a case that ended in dismissal or acquittal is generally sealable with no waiting period at all. We filed that month.

The two halves of the statute

Colorado splits record sealing into non-convictions and convictions, and they behave very differently.

Non-convictions, meaning cases dismissed, acquitted, or never charged after an arrest, fall under section 705. There is generally no waiting period, and in the cleanest postures the process is straightforward.

Convictions fall under section 706, and there the waiting period depends on the level of the offense. It runs from the later of the final disposition of the case or your release from supervision, which for most people means the end of probation rather than the date of the plea.

The waiting periods

These are statutory figures that the General Assembly revisits regularly, so check the current version of the statute rather than an article, including this one.

• Petty offenses and petty drug offenses: one year.
• Class 2 misdemeanors and drug misdemeanors: two years.
• Class 1 misdemeanors, class 4, 5 and 6 felonies, and level 3 and 4 drug felonies: three years.
• Any other eligible offense: five years.

What cannot be sealed

The exclusions matter as much as the timetables. Class 1 and class 2 felonies, level 1 drug felonies, and sex offenses requiring registration are outside the scheme. So are class 1 misdemeanor traffic offenses.

And, importantly for this firm's practice: Colorado does not seal DUI or DWAI convictions. Not after five years, not after twenty. That single exclusion is one of the strongest arguments for fighting a first DUI properly rather than taking the quick disposition, because the quick disposition is permanent in a way that a theft conviction is not.

What sealing actually does

A sealed record is not a destroyed record. Law enforcement, the courts, and certain licensing and regulatory bodies can still see it. What changes is what a commercial background check returns, and what you are permitted to say when asked.

For most people that is the whole point. Housing applications, employment screening and professional applications run on commercial databases, and those are what sealing addresses.

Deferred judgments are the easy case

A completed deferred judgment ends in a dismissal. That puts it in the non-conviction half of the statute, which is why negotiating for a deferred judgment at the front of a case is worth so much more than it appears at the time. You are not just avoiding a sentence; you are buying a far shorter and far simpler route to a clean record years later.

Offenses that are no longer offenses

Colorado created a separate route under C.R.S. 24-72-704 for convictions for conduct that is no longer a crime. In practice that mostly means older marijuana possession cases. Those have their own, simpler process, and a surprising number of people still carrying one have never used it.

How to check yours

Start with the disposition, not the charge. Was it dismissed, acquitted, deferred and dismissed, or convicted? Then find the offense level and the date supervision ended. Those three facts answer the question most of the time, and they take about ten minutes to establish from the court record.

Reviewed September 2026. Statutes and figures mentioned here change; confirm the current text before relying on any of it. This is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.