AGAIN, Court Orders are Meaningless: Indiana Courts Expunge Criminal Records; Google Can Keep the Stigma Alive. It's Time for the Legislature to Act.

More lack or effective leadership by DEI Chief Justice Rush, eroding confidence in her and Indiana's courts.

Indiana promises a second chance through judicial expungement orders. But the digital world can continue displaying yesterday's criminal accusations as today's reality, leaving citizens to fight an expensive and often futile battle to reclaim their reputations.

INDIANAPOLIS — What good is a court order expunging a criminal conviction if an employer, landlord, prospective customer or neighbor can type someone's name into Google and immediately encounter a decades-old criminal record presented without any indication that a judge has legally expunged it?

Indiana lawmakers have created a statutory system intended to give qualifying individuals relief from the continuing consequences of past criminal cases. Judges review petitions, determine eligibility and issue expungement orders under Indiana Code § 35-38-9. The law promises meaningful relief, including restrictions on disclosure, employment discrimination and the use of expunged records.

Yet the promise of a second chance becomes considerably less meaningful when the internet continues circulating incomplete or outdated information about the very convictions the courts have addressed.

A criminal conviction may be expunged in the courthouse but remain effectively permanent in the search engine.

That is a public-policy failure Indiana should confront.

A Court Order Should Mean Something Beyond the Courthouse

Indiana law recognizes that people should not necessarily be punished indefinitely for offenses committed years earlier. Under § 35-38-9-10, qualifying individuals whose records have been expunged generally must be treated as though they had never been convicted, subject to important statutory exceptions.

The law also prohibits specified forms of discrimination based on expunged records, including certain employment, licensing and educational decisions.

For some expungements, records must be sealed. For others, particularly certain more serious felony convictions, records remain publicly accessible but must be clearly marked as expunged.

The General Assembly therefore already recognizes two essential principles: Some criminal histories should no longer be publicly accessible, and other histories must be presented with their updated legal status.

But those protections are incomplete if private databases and search engines continue presenting old information without reflecting what the courts have subsequently ordered.

A judge can order the state's official records corrected, sealed or marked. That does not necessarily mean every privately maintained webpage or search result will be corrected.

The result can be a digital contradiction: Indiana law recognizes an expungement, while an internet search continues presenting the old conviction without context.

Google Should Not Be the Final Authority on a Hoosier's Reputation

Google does not decide whether someone qualifies for expungement. Indiana's courts do.

Nevertheless, Google's search results can have enormous practical consequences. An outdated search snippet may be the first—and sometimes only—information a potential employer or business associate encounters.

The problem becomes particularly serious when a search result inaccurately describes an expunged conviction as current, omits a later dismissal or fails to reflect a judicial order that fundamentally changed the person's legal status.

There is a distinction between preserving truthful historical reporting and continuing to distribute materially misleading information.

The public has legitimate interests in journalism, historical records and government accountability. Expungement should not become a device for erasing accurate reporting about matters of public concern. Nor should every old article automatically become unlawful merely because the underlying conviction was expunged.

But there is no sound public-policy reason to treat a demonstrably outdated criminal-history listing as immune from correction when an individual supplies an authenticated court order establishing the current legal status.

Google offers procedures for requesting removal of certain outdated or legally objectionable search results. Those procedures, however, are not the same as a uniform statutory obligation to update every expunged record within a defined period.

Indiana should examine how to close that gap.

The General Assembly Should Enact a Digital Expungement Enforcement Act

The Hoosier Enquirer calls on the Indiana General Assembly to consider legislation ensuring that judicial expungement orders receive meaningful recognition throughout the commercial criminal-history information industry.

A carefully drafted statute should establish five protections.

First, mandatory correction of commercial criminal-history reports. Any company that sells or distributes criminal-history information for employment, housing, licensing or similar decisions should be required to verify expungement status and correct covered records promptly after receiving authenticated notice.

Second, an enforceable correction process for search results. Search providers should offer a clear mechanism for individuals to submit valid expungement orders and identify results that inaccurately describe a conviction's current legal status. The General Assembly should examine whether a correction deadline can lawfully apply to covered commercial services, consistent with federal law and constitutional protections.

Third, removal or correction of outdated government-source information. When an Indiana court seals or redacts a record, state agencies should ensure that public-facing databases are updated promptly. Official systems should not continue publishing information that a court has ordered withheld.

Fourth, stronger remedies for repeated violations. Where commercial criminal-history providers knowingly continue distributing prohibited information after authenticated notice, individuals should have meaningful avenues for enforcement, including statutory damages and attorney fees where constitutionally and legally appropriate.

Fifth, accountability for data brokers. Companies that obtain criminal-history data in bulk should have reasonable obligations to maintain accurate legal-status information rather than selling obsolete records indefinitely.

These proposals must distinguish general search engines from specialized background-check companies. Federal law, including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and First Amendment protections may limit what Indiana can compel a search engine or news publisher to remove. Federal consumer-reporting law may also apply to some criminal-history products.

A serious legislative effort must address those limits rather than promise remedies courts cannot enforce.

A Reasonable Deadline: 30 Days After Verified Notice

For covered commercial criminal-history providers, Indiana should consider requiring correction or removal within 30 days after receipt of an authenticated expungement order.

The deadline should be paired with safeguards against fraudulent submissions, mistaken identity and suppression of information that remains legally public.

For general search engines, the state should explore a separate procedure addressing demonstrably false or outdated legal-status representations, with judicial review before coercive penalties are imposed.

The goal should not be to rewrite history. It should be to prevent the continued commercial use of records in ways that contradict their present legal status.

Similstly the fake news outlets, like Indy Star and the South Bend Tribune and Elkhart Truth should be requred to romove article older than 7 years and report the current truth or remove all old reports of expunged criminal cases, acquittals, appeal success, or expungements. Their outdated and fake news articles are hurting too many and destroy the public trust in all media. Fake news is also old news showing up as relevant many years later, which the legislator should legislate as per se malicious and actionable.

Indiana Cannot Promise Rehabilitation and Ignore Digital Punishment

A person who successfully petitions for expungement has completed a legal process established by the General Assembly. That person should not have to spend years contacting websites, paying reputation-management companies and explaining an obsolete criminal record to every prospective employer.

The state's responsibility does not end when a judge signs an order. Indiana should ensure that its own agencies implement that order and that regulated criminal-history businesses comply with existing law.

The legislature should also study how frequently expunged records continue appearing in online background checks, how long corrections take, and whether existing enforcement mechanisms provide effective relief.

These questions concern more than convenience. They affect employment, housing, professional licensing, financial opportunity and the credibility of the judicial system itself.

A second chance that exists only in a court file is an incomplete second chance.

Indiana should protect lawful historical reporting while requiring accurate commercial criminal-history information and prompt implementation of expungement orders.

The public should not have to choose between freedom of information and the meaningful enforcement of judicial relief.

When an Indiana court grants an expungement, the legal consequences of that order should not disappear at the courthouse door, but again, under Loretta Rush's failed court rule and her lack of leadership, court orders carry no real meaning once again.