Court ordered to reconsider expungement petition

An illegible handwritten note next to a docket entry in a 1976 conviction is not enough to support the trial court’s decision to deny a man’s expungement petition because he had not paid $37 in court costs. The Indiana Court of Appeals ordered the trial court to reconsider the man’s petition.

James D. Borel pleaded guilty in 1976 to “entering to commit a felony.” He successfully served his sentence and completed his term of parole and filed his petition for expungement last year. The state objected, saying he failed to show he paid all fines, fees and court costs imposed as part of the sentence, as required under the statute in effect at the time the petition was filed.

Borel went to the clerk’s office, which could not find any records showing he owed court costs or fines related to the case. The trial court denied Borel’s petition, and his motion to correct error, pointing to the original docket sheet, which said he owed court costs of $37 and that Borel failed to prove he paid that amount. That entry consists of an illegible word, possibly “costs” next to “37.00” but there is no indication as to who wrote the note or when it was added to the docket, the opinion states.

“We are mindful of our obligation to consider facts in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling and to refrain from reweighing evidence, but this handwritten scrawl of indeterminate origin provides little evidence that costs were imposed or remain due, especially where the formal, typed entries are silent on the matter. Furthermore, Borel provided evidence that he had asked the trial court clerk for documents indicating whether he still owed court costs. The clerk stated that it was unable to find any such documents. Presumably, the clerk knows his or her own records,” Senior Judge Betty Barteau wrote in In Re: The Matter of the Petition to Expunge Conviction Records of James D. Borel v. State of Indiana, 41A01-1412-MI-533.

The judges remanded the matter for further proceedings.