Missouri courts miss cannabis expungements promised by voters in 2022, and residents are finding eligible convictions still on their records. The state constitution required courts to erase misdemeanor cannabis convictions automatically by June 8, 2023. Two years after that deadline, Missouri’s court data shows about 155,000 cannabis cases were expunged while roughly 334,000 cases were reviewed — an expungement rate of about 46% of reviewed cases — leaving uncertainty about thousands of other records.
The gap surfaced in an April opinion from the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, in a sealed case identified in public filings only as D.S. A St. Louis County judge used a petition pathway designed for incarcerated people to clear a 2003 misdemeanor cannabis conviction. The Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) told the appellate court that “hundreds of thousands” of cannabis offenses may remain on criminal records and argued the circuit court lacked authority to consider that kind of petition because the constitutional amendment required automatic expungement for misdemeanors.
The appellate court noted the patrol presented no evidence to support the “hundreds of thousands” figure at the circuit court. Capt. Scott White, MSHP spokesman, later told reporters the agency’s estimate came from broad review criteria and the Highway Patrol’s Central Repository, which stores criminal-history reports submitted by law enforcement and courts. The repository now also updates records when cannabis cases are expunged.
Although the appellate judges agreed the circuit court “exceeded its authority in hearing the petition,” they ruled in D.S.’s favor because the constitution had already required the misdemeanor be expunged by the June 8, 2023 deadline. The judges wrote D.S. “should not have to use one of the three expungements permitted for misdemeanors” under state statutory law when the constitution mandated an automatic expungement.
The ruling exposed a practical problem: if a clerk’s office fails to clear an eligible record, the path to fix it is inconsistent across counties. Individuals have been told to: (1) ask the circuit clerk to correct records administratively; (2) file a petition under Missouri’s regular criminal-expungement law; or (3) pursue a writ of mandamus to force public officials to perform a legal duty. No single remedy has been recognized statewide.
St. Louis County officials say clerks will review files if residents contact the clerk’s office. John O’Sullivan, a St. Louis County court spokesman, said clerks will expunge a charge administratively if they find it was missed. But after the appellate decision, St. Louis County has been directing petitioners to use the regular expungement statute rather than the constitutional amendment’s petition pathway — a move defense attorneys argue forces people to use one of the statutory three misdemeanor expungements allowed in a lifetime.
Lee Camp, an attorney with ArchCity Defenders who represented D.S., said his office has been contacted by multiple people whose records should have been cleared. Some filed petitions in St. Louis County and had their cases dismissed after the appellate ruling. Camp warned advising clients to use a statutory expungement risks “burning” one of their limited expungement slots on a record that the constitution required be cleared automatically.
Circuit clerks statewide report workload and data issues. Becky Uhlich, Saline County circuit clerk and vice president of the Missouri Circuit Clerk Association, said clerks received computer-generated lists from the Office of State Courts Administrator with thousands of potential eligible offenses. Those lists omitted people who were under 21 at the time of arrest and paper records that largely stop around 2014. For paper files clerks had to read individual summaries, and the six-month window between the December 2022 amendment and the June 2023 deadline pressed many offices.
State courts report 155,000 expungements performed and about 334,000 cases reviewed. Clerks say the “cases reviewed” figure likely understates the total search work because ineligible paper records were read and not documented in the same way as electronic matches. Some clerks said they relied on guidance suggesting searches should reach back to 1971, when the first marijuana-related statutes were enacted, though the constitutional amendment did not specify a start year.
Advocates and former campaign staff estimate the backlog could be large. Dan Viets, Missouri NORML coordinator and former advisory-board chair for the 2022 legalization campaign, calculated that if Missouri averaged 20,000 cannabis arrests per year, the 140,000 expungements reported early on would represent roughly seven years of arrests — implying older cases could still be scattered through records. He noted, however, that courts have not seen a flood of petition filings, which undercuts claims that allowing petitions would overwhelm the system.
Practical steps for residents remain: contact your county circuit clerk with specific case information so staff can check whether an automatic expungement was applied; if clerks confirm a miss, they may correct records administratively. Some defense attorneys say filing a petition remains an option, and several lawyers are considering writs of mandamus to compel courts and clerks to complete searches and issue orders required by the constitutional amendment.
The D.S. opinion clarifies that courts should have already expunged eligible misdemeanors, but it leaves open how missed cases should be handled and whether circuit courts may accept additional petitions for automatic-expungement cases. Until the Missouri Supreme Court or the legislature sets a uniform process, county practices will likely keep varying. That variation affects employment, housing and public-benefit eligibility for people whose cannabis records remain visible despite the constitutional deadline.
For now, state court data and local clerk offices are the best sources for individuals checking their records. Legal aid groups such as ArchCity Defenders and criminal-defense attorneys are tracking missed cases and preparing potential mandamus petitions to force statewide compliance where clerks have not completed the constitutional duty to expunge eligible cannabis misdemeanors.
