Shelby County Tennessee, where the county seat is Memphis, has, as of March 23, 2026, begun implementing automatic expungements for cases that have been dismissed, or where the prosecution has been stopped (nolle prosequi). If not automatically expunged, chargers may be expunged in other circumstances after a proper application has been filed with a court and approved by the judge. An example would be after a judicial diversion. However, keeping in mind the subject matter of this news blog, DUI (driving under the influence of an intoxicant) offenses are not eligible for a judicial diversion.
An expungement generally means that the public records that relate to one’s arrest are erased. This does not, however, erase law-enforcement records such as those maintained by the local law-enforcement agencies, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, or the non-public records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The statute relating to the expunction of criminal records may be found in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–32–106. It specifies the specific offenses that may and may not be expunged, and under what circumstances a criminal record may be expunged. For instance, some offenses may be expunged, even if not dismissed, after a certain period of time has elapsed. For more information click here.
There are some potential problems, however, with automatically expunging a criminal record. One such problem is that the defendant may not desire for the record to be expunged. Once expunged, a record cannot be again placed in the public records of the criminal justice system (electronically, or otherwise) . This could affect people who need to prove that a charge was, in fact, dismissed. For instance, when applying for certain jobs, a potential employer may find evidence on the Internet that an arrest occurred, but, if expunged, the defendant may not be later able to prove that the case was dismissed. Other issues exist for those who may need proof of the dismissal in order to complete certain immigration proceedings. Accordingly, before expunging any record, it is generally a good idea to first obtain a certified copy of the court judgment and keep it in a safe place.
About the Author: Steven Oberman has been licensed in Tennessee since 1980, and successfully defended over 2,500 DUI defendants. Steve was the first lawyer in Tennessee to be Board Certified as a DUI Defense Specialist by the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. (NCDD). Among the many honors bestowed upon him, Steve has served as Dean of the NCDD and currently serves as chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers DUI Committee.
Steve is the author of DUI: The Crime & Consequences in Tennessee, updated annually since 1991 (Thomson-West), and co-author with Lawrence Taylor (1942 – 2023) of the national treatise, Drunk Driving Defense, 9th edition (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen). Steve has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee Law School since 1993 and has received a number of prestigious awards for his faculty contributions.
He is a popular international speaker, having spoken at legal seminars in 30 states, the District of Columbia and 12 foreign countries. After being named a Fulbright Scholar, Steve was honored to teach as a Visiting Professor at the University of Latvia Faculty of Law (Law School) in the capital city of Riga, Latvia for a semester during 2019. In 2023, Steve accepted an offer to teach for a semester as a Visiting Professor at Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law in Budapest, Hungary. Steve was designated a Fulbright Scholar for a second time and taught American Criminal Law and American Trial Advocacy at The University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law in the capital city of Ljubljana, Slovenia for the 2024 spring semester. Since then, Steve taught American Trial Advocacy to Masters Students in Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law for the Winter Semester in 2025 at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Faculty of Law in Madrid, Spain and at The University of Gdańsk Faculty of Law in Poland during the winter semester of 2026. If you would like to contact the author, please visit his website at www.tndui.com. ↩︎
