Can a Sex Crime Record Be Sealed in Arizona? ARS 13-911

Can You Seal a Sex Crime Record in Arizona?

The case may be years behind you, but the record is not. Every apartment application, employment screen, and licensing check pulls it back up , and when the entry involves a sex offense, that visibility costs more than almost any other charge on a background report.

Arizona’s record-sealing statute, ARS 13-911, lets some people petition to seal their arrest, conviction, and sentencing records. This article covers how that statute treats sex offenses specifically: which ones are permanently excluded, which can qualify, how sealing interacts with sex offender registration, and what happens when the charge was dismissed. For the statute’s general rules across all offense types, start with our complete guide to sealing your Arizona criminal record.

Rarely after a felony conviction , but yes in a defined set of situations. Under ARS 13-911(A), a person may petition to seal case records if they were (1) convicted and have completed every term of the sentence, including all fines and restitution, (2) charged but the case was dismissed or ended in a not guilty verdict, or (3) arrested and never charged.

For sex offense cases, everything turns on subsection O, the exclusion list. Four of its six categories reach sex offenses directly, and together they bar sealing for nearly every felony conviction in this part of the criminal code. The realistic candidates are misdemeanor convictions, a narrow band of class 6 felonies, and cases that never ended in conviction at all.

Which Sex Offenses Can Never Be Sealed Under ARS 13-911?

Subsection O excludes felony sex offenses through several overlapping routes, and a single conviction often triggers more than one of them:

• The chapter-wide felony bar. ARS 13-911(O)(6) excludes any “class 2, 3, 4 or 5 felony offense that is included in chapter 14 or 35.1” of the criminal code , chapter 14 is the sexual offenses chapter and chapter 35.1 covers sexual exploitation of children. That single paragraph sweeps in sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual conduct with a minor, molestation of a child, and the child exploitation felonies, at every class from 2 through 5.
• Serious offenses and violent or aggravated felonies. O(3) excludes any serious offense or violent or aggravated felony as defined in ARS 13-706. That definition independently names sexual assault, sexual conduct with a minor under fifteen, child sex trafficking, molestation of a child, continuous sexual abuse of a child, and sexual exploitation of a minor.
• Dangerous crimes against children. O(2) excludes every dangerous crime against children as defined in ARS 13-705, the sentencing regime that covers most sexual felonies committed against victims under fifteen.
• Sex trafficking. O(5) excludes sex trafficking under ARS 13-1307 by name.

The redundancy is deliberate. The legislature built multiple independent bars in front of felony sex offense records, so arguing around one exclusion does not help if a second one still applies.

Which Sex Offense Records Can Be Sealed?

The realistic candidates are the class 1 misdemeanors in chapter 14 and a small set of class 6 felonies, because subsection O’s chapter-wide bar stops at class 5. Under ARS 13-1402, indecent exposure to a person fifteen or older is a class 1 misdemeanor, and under ARS 13-1403, public sexual indecency is a class 1 misdemeanor. Indecent exposure becomes a class 6 felony when the person exposed is under fifteen or when the defendant has qualifying priors , still outside the class 2-5 bar, though other exclusions and the court’s public safety judgment remain in play.

What If the Sex Crime Charge Was Dismissed or You Were Acquitted?

You can petition right away , the waiting periods in ARS 13-911(E) apply only to people completing a sentence. If the charge was dismissed, a jury found you not guilty, or you were arrested and never charged, subsections A(2) and A(3) let you file without a statutory delay, in the court where the charge was filed or, if no charges were filed, where you had your initial appearance or were arrested.

Two cautions from how these petitions play out in practice. First, subsection O’s exclusion list is written in terms of offenses, not convictions, so expect the prosecutor to argue it reaches even a dismissed sexual assault charge , one more reason these petitions benefit from counsel rather than a form filing. Second, under subsection N, if you pick up a new charge while the petition is pending, the court must wait to rule until that charge is resolved.

For someone acquitted of a sex offense, sealing matters more than people expect: the arrest and charge otherwise remain visible on background checks indefinitely, and an unexplained sex offense charge can be as damaging in a hiring file as a conviction.

How Does Sex Offender Registration Interact With Sealing?

Sealing and registration are separate systems, and getting relief in one does not touch the other. Three points matter:

The lists overlap almost completely. The offenses that require registration under ARS 13-3821(A) , sexual conduct with a minor, sexual assault, molestation, continuous sexual abuse, the child exploitation and child sex trafficking offenses , are the same offenses subsection O bars from sealing. In most registration cases, sealing was never available to begin with. The narrow exception runs the other way: repeat indecent exposure offenses that trigger registration are class 6 felonies under ARS 13-1402, which the class 2-5 bar does not reach, so a registrable record can occasionally still be a sealable one.

Sealing does not end a duty to register. Nothing in ARS 13-911 terminates registration. That relief lives in the registration statutes themselves , ARS 13-3821 ends the duty for certain juvenile adjudications and allows a court to suspend or terminate registration after a hearing under ARS 13-923. Until a court enters that order, the duty continues, and so does felony exposure for failure to register under ARS 13-3824. Sealing also leaves any lifetime injunction issued under ARS 13-719 fully intact per 13-911(P)(4).

Judges can order registration even in otherwise sealable cases. Under ARS 13-3821(C), a sentencing judge may order registration for any chapter 14 or 35.1 violation, including offenses that would otherwise qualify for sealing. If registration is the problem you are actually trying to solve, the right tool is a termination proceeding, not a sealing petition , our guide to fighting sex offender registration in Phoenix covers that fight in detail.

Sealing vs. Set-Aside: What Is the Difference for a Sex Offense?

A set-aside changes the legal status of a conviction; sealing changes who can see it. Under ARS 13-905, a set-aside dismisses the judgment of guilt and releases you from the penalties and disabilities of the conviction, but the Department of Public Safety keeps the conviction on your public record with an annotation , employers running a background check still see it. A sealed record disappears from public view entirely.

For sex offenses, the set-aside statute has its own exclusion list in 13-905(P): no set-aside for a dangerous offense, an offense requiring registration under 13-3821, an offense with a finding of sexual motivation under ARS 13-118, or a felony in which the victim was under fifteen. The practical matrix looks like this: a felony chapter 14 conviction with registration usually qualifies for neither remedy; a first-offense misdemeanor indecent exposure with no registration order can often pursue both , a set-aside as soon as the sentence is done, then sealing when the three-year clock runs. The strategy and paperwork for the first step are covered in our guide to setting aside a conviction in Arizona.

How Does the Sealing Process Work in Maricopa County?

The petition is filed in the court that handled the case , Maricopa County Superior Court for felonies, or the justice or municipal court that entered a misdemeanor conviction. From there, ARS 13-911 builds in real procedural checkpoints:

• The DPS report. The court asks the Department of Public Safety for a report of all your state and federal arrests, prosecutions, and convictions. DPS may charge a fee unless you are indigent or the case ended in acquittal or dismissal.
• A sixty-day floor. The court cannot grant or deny the petition until sixty calendar days after filing unless both the prosecutor and any victims who requested notice affirmatively do not object.
• The victim’s voice. In sex offense cases especially, expect this to matter: the victim has a statutory right to be present and heard at any proceeding on the petition, and the prosecutor must notify a victim who requested postconviction notice.
• The standard. The court grants the petition only if sealing is in the best interests of both the petitioner and the public’s safety. Defense attorneys handling these petitions in Arizona courts build that showing affirmatively , treatment completion, steady employment, the years lived offense-free , rather than assuming eligibility equals approval.

What Does a Sealed Record Do , and Not Do?

A granted petition lets you state, on employment, housing, financial aid, and loan applications, that you were never arrested for, charged with, or convicted of the sealed offense. That is the headline benefit, and for most private-sector screening it is complete.

The exceptions matter in Arizona, though. The right to deny the record does not apply when you apply for a fingerprint clearance card , the credential required for teaching, health care, child care, and many state-licensed jobs , or for positions with law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, probation, child welfare agencies, or corrections. The fingerprinting board can still consider a sealed conviction, although the statute requires it to treat the sealing as a mitigating circumstance when deciding a good cause exception.

Sealed also does not mean erased. Under 13-911(B), a sealed conviction can still be alleged as a historical prior felony, used to enhance a later sentence, and used for impeachment, and subsection J keeps the record available to law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, probation, and the Department of Child Safety for their official duties.

How Tamou Law Group Helps With Sex Offense Records

Record relief in a sex offense case is rarely one petition. It is a sequence: confirming which exclusions actually apply to your specific conviction and class, resolving registration through termination proceedings where the law allows it, choosing between set-aside and sealing or stacking both, and building the public safety showing before the prosecutor and victim weigh in. Our team of former prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and public defenders handles that sequence as part of a full Phoenix sex crimes defense practice , from the original charge through the last background check.

Call 623-321-4699 for a confidential review of what your record shows and which relief is realistically available.