J. Doe v. Iowa District Court for Polk County

In the Iowa Supreme Court
No. 24–0453
Submitted October 7, 2025—Filed November 7, 2025
Amended January 12, 2026
J. Doe,
Plaintiff,
vs.
Iowa District Court for Polk County,
Defendant.
Certiorari to the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jesse Ramirez, judge.
The plaintiff petitions the district court’s denial of a motion to implement
an expungement. Writ Sustained and Case Remanded.
McDonald, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices
joined.
Arianna Nalani Eddy (argued) of Iowa Legal Aid, Cedar Rapids, and
Alexander Vincent Kornya of Iowa Legal Aid, Des Moines, for plaintiff.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Martha E. Trout (argued), Assistant
Attorney General, for defendant.

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McDonald, Justice.
A defendant convicted of a misdemeanor offense is entitled to the
expungement of the “record” of the “criminal case” in which the misdemeanor
conviction was entered if certain prerequisites are met. Iowa Code § 901C.3(1)
(2023); see also Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.84. The question presented in this appeal is
how the defendant’s statutory entitlement to expungement is to be applied when
the criminal case contains both a misdemeanor conviction and a dismissed
charge—does the statute require expungement and redaction of only those parts
of the criminal case relating to or revealing information about the misdemeanor
conviction, or does the statute require expungement of the criminal case file,
including those parts relating to the dismissed charge? For the reasons explained
below, we hold the statute mandates expungement of the criminal case file.
I.
In 2013, Doe was charged by trial information in a criminal case with one
count of domestic abuse assault, in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2A(2)(c)
(2013), and one count of child endangerment, in violation of Iowa Code
section 726.6. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the State amended the domestic
abuse assault charge to disorderly conduct, in violation of Iowa Code
section 723.4, a simple misdemeanor, and Doe pleaded guilty to the same. As
part of the plea agreement, the State dismissed the child endangerment charge.
Ten years later, in August 2023, Doe petitioned for expungement of his
misdemeanor conviction pursuant to Iowa Code section 901C.3 (2023). The
district court granted expungement “as to count I only,” which was the disorderly
conduct conviction. In accord with the district court’s order, the clerk restricted
access to and redacted certain filings in the criminal case relevant to the
misdemeanor conviction but left the remainder of the criminal case accessible to

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the public. The district court did not provide the clerk with any direction
regarding which documents should be restricted and what redactions should be
made to unrestricted documents.
When Doe realized that the criminal case was still accessible to the public,
Doe filed a motion for implementation of expungement pursuant to Iowa Rule of
Criminal Procedure 2.84(4). In the motion, Doe argued that the clerk incorrectly
treated this as a “mixed file” expungement, meaning that the clerk expunged and
redacted only parts of the criminal case but left other parts of the criminal case
accessible to the public. In Doe’s view, the public was still able to access filings
in the criminal case that indirectly revealed information about the misdemeanor
offense. Doe noted, for example, that the disposition screen for the criminal case
listed “the dismissed count as ‘Count 2,’ leading to the inescapable conclusion
that there [was] at least one other count that is not public record because it was
expunged.” In Doe’s view, the statute required whole-file expungement rather
than mixed-file expungement.
The district court disagreed. The district court dismissed Doe’s motion
without a hearing. In a short order, the district court concluded: “This case
[(referring to dismissed count II)] is not eligible for expungement under 901C.3
as there was no misdemeanor conviction.” It appears the district court construed
section 901C.3 to allow expungement and redaction of only those filings within
the criminal case related to the misdemeanor conviction without any application
to the remainder of the criminal case file.
Doe filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with this court, which we granted.
We will sustain a writ of certiorari when the district court has exceeded its
jurisdiction or otherwise acted illegally. Christensen v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 21 N.W.3d

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529, 531 (Iowa 2025). In this context, a district court acts illegally when it
misinterprets or misapplies the governing statute. See id. at 532.
II.
This case presents a question of statutory interpretation and construction.
We begin our review of the legality of the district court’s ruling with the text of
the statute at issue. See Doe v. State (Doe 2020), 943 N.W.2d 608, 610 (Iowa
2020). We seek to determine the “ordinary and fair meaning of the statutory
language at issue.” Id. In making that determination, we consider “the language’s
relationship to other provisions of the same statute and other provisions of
related statutes.” Id.; see also Iowa Code § 4.1(38) (“Words and phrases shall be
construed according to the context and the approved usage of the language
. . . .”); State v. Doe (Doe 2017), 903 N.W.2d 347, 351 (Iowa 2017) (stating we
consider the “relevant language, read in the context of the entire statute”).
The statute mandates the district court expunge “the record” of “a criminal
case” upon application of a defendant convicted of a misdemeanor offense if the
defendant has satisfied certain requirements. Iowa Code § 901C.3(1). The statute
provides:
Upon application of a defendant convicted of a misdemeanor offense
in the county where the conviction occurred, the court shall enter
an order expunging the record of such a criminal case, as a matter of
law, if the defendant has proven all of the following:
a. More than eight years have passed since the date of the
conviction.
b. The defendant has no pending criminal charges.
c. The defendant has not previously been granted two deferred
judgments.
d. The defendant has paid all court costs, fees, fines,
restitution, and any other financial obligations ordered by the court
or assessed by the clerk of the district court.

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Id. (emphasis added). The statute also provides a list of misdemeanor convictions
not eligible for expungement. Id. § 901C.3(2).
All of the prerequisites to expungement are satisfied here, and none of the
exclusions are applicable here. The only question presented is what constitutes
“a criminal case” within the meaning of the statute. In answering that question,
we do not write on a blank slate. We addressed a similar question in Doe 2017,
903 N.W.2d at 351. Doe 2017 involved the meaning of the term “criminal case”
as used in section 901C.2, which provides for the expungement of a criminal
case where all charges in the case were disposed of by acquittal or dismissal. Id.
at 348; see also Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a)(1). The defendant in Doe 2017 was
charged with several counts in one criminal case (case one) and a single count
of domestic abuse assault in a separately numbered criminal case (case two), all
arising out of the same events. 903 N.W.2d at 349. Pursuant to a plea agreement,
the defendant pleaded guilty to harassment charges in case one, and the state
dismissed the domestic abuse assault charge in case two. Id. Doe later sought
expungement of case two pursuant to section 901C.2. Id. The district court
reasoned that all the charges in the criminal case had not been dismissed. Id. at
349–50. The district court concluded that case one and case two were one
criminal case because they arose from the same events. Id. This court reversed.
Id. at 349. We acknowledged the term “criminal case” was ambiguous. Id. at 351.
Applying traditional tools of statutory interpretation and construction, we
concluded that a criminal case was a “separately numbered legal proceeding.”
Id. at 351–53. Expungement of a criminal case applied “case-number-by-case-
number, rather than charge-by-charge.” Id. at 352. Because the only charge in
case two had been dismissed, that criminal case should have been expunged. Id.
at 352–53.

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As we acknowledged in Doe 2017, the term “criminal case” is ambiguous.
Doe and the State agree. When statutory text is ambiguous, we must resort to
other tools of statutory interpretation and construction to determine the meaning
and application of the statute. See id. at 351; see also Iowa Code § 4.6 (listing
several additional tools we may consider in construing ambiguous statutes).
Employing these additional tools, several considerations lead us to conclude that
criminal case expungements under section 901C.3, like criminal case
expungements under section 901C.2, must be implemented on a whole-file
basis.
Section 901C.3 was added to the Code two years after our decision in
Doe 2017. See 2019 Iowa Acts ch. 140, § 2 (codified at Iowa Code § 901C.3
(2020)). We assume the legislature accepted our interpretation of the term
“criminal case” in section 901C.2 and our construction of the statute when it
chose to include nearly identical language in section 901C.3. See Ackelson v.
Manley Toy Direct, L.L.C., 832 N.W.2d 678, 688 (Iowa 2013) (“[W]e presume the
legislature is aware of our cases that interpret its statutes.”); Kragnes v. City of
Des Moines, 714 N.W.2d 632, 640 (Iowa 2006) (“Unless there is clear evidence to
the contrary, we assume that when the legislature enacts a law, it is aware of
the existing state of the law and our prior interpretations of similar statutory
provisions.”). Compare Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a) (“[T]he court shall enter an order
expunging the record of such criminal case . . . .”), with id. § 901C.3(1) (“[T]he
court shall enter an order expunging the record of such a criminal case . . . .”).
The inference the legislature approved of our prior interpretation and
construction of the term “criminal case” is compelling here because the
legislature has proven it knows how to authorize count-by-count expungement
when it intends to do so. For example, in cases involving the expungement of

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deferred judgments, Iowa Code section 907.9(4)(b) distinctly directs the
expungement of specific “counts” and “charges.” That specific direction related
to counts and charges stands in stark contrast to the legislature’s direction in
chapter 901C to expunge the record of the “criminal case.” Id. §§ 901C.2, .3.
Additional textual considerations support the conclusion that
section 901C.3 requires whole-file expungement. Iowa Code section 901C.1
provides that the terms “expunge” and “expungement” “mean the same as
expunged in section 907.1.” Iowa Code section 907.1(3), in turn, provides that
to expunge a file means “the court’s criminal record . . . has been segregated in
a secure area or database which is exempted from public access.” Iowa Code
section 901C.3(4) further provides that an “expunged record under this section
is a confidential record exempt from public access under section 22.7.” A
criminal case that is only partially concealed or redacted but otherwise remains
accessible to the public is not segregated or exempt from public access within
the meaning of the statute.
Administrative concerns also lead us to conclude that section 901C.3
should be administered on a whole-file basis. See Doe 2017, 903 N.W.2d at 353
(“Generally, we try to interpret statutes so they are reasonable and workable.”
(quoting State v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 889 N.W.2d 467, 473 (Iowa 2017))); Taft v. Iowa
Dist. Ct., 828 N.W.2d 309, 317 (Iowa 2013) (“Among the most venerable of the
canons of statutory construction is the one stating that a statute should be given
a sensible, practical, workable, and logical construction.” (quoting Walthart v.
Bd. of Dirs. of Edgewood–Colesburg Cmty. Sch. Dist., 667 N.W.2d 873, 877–78
(Iowa 2003))). We explained in Doe 2017 that expungement is more easily
administrable when performed on a whole-file basis. 903 N.W.2d at 353. “A strict
rule of ‘one case per case number,’ ” could be applied “across the board” and

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could be implemented “predictably, quickly, and in a ministerial way.” Id. In
contrast, to implement the State’s proposed “mixed file” regime requires a clerk
of court to review an entire criminal case line by line to segregate filings and
further redact any information from nonsegregated filings that directly or
indirectly reveals information about the expunged misdemeanor.
The State argues it would be absurd to apply section 901C.3 to an entire
criminal case because that approach would allow the expungement of felony and
nonexpungable misdemeanor convictions in the same criminal case with the
expungable misdemeanor conviction. We disagree. When a felony or other
nonexpungable conviction is present in the same criminal case, the whole-case
approach dictates that the entire criminal case is ineligible for expungement
under section 901C.3. That result is required because felony convictions and
nonexpungable misdemeanor convictions preclude expungement of the criminal
case file. In contrast, expungement of a dismissed charge is statutorily
authorized by itself. See Iowa Code § 901C.2. Doe concedes this to be a correct
construction of the statute.
Finally, we note that the whole-file approach—allowing expungement of a
criminal case containing a misdemeanor conviction and dismissed charges but
disallowing expungement of the criminal case where one of the convictions is not
expungable—is consistent with the purpose of the statute. We have said that
chapter 901C provides defendants with an opportunity to eliminate the stigma
associated with criminal charges not resulting in convictions and certain minor
misdemeanor convictions:
“[A] driving concern behind chapter 901C was that a member of the
general public—such as an employer doing an informal background
check—could access our computerized docket and potentially draw
inappropriate inferences from the mere presence of a criminal file
relating to an individual, even though the criminal charges were

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dismissed or the individual was acquitted.” To avoid these
inappropriate inferences and other “stigma,” the statute was enacted
to facilitate the expungement of the record in criminal cases . . . .
Doe 2020, 943 N.W.2d at 613 (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting
Doe 2017, 903 N.W.2d at 354). When a case involves an expungable
misdemeanor and a dismissed count, allowing the public to access a mixed file
still allows the public to draw inappropriate inferences and stigma, whereas
expungement of the criminal case eliminates that risk without depriving the
public of valuable information. See Doe 2017, 903 N.W.2d at 354 (“[T]he State
has not persuaded us that it would necessarily be unfair for the public to be
deprived of information about a dismissed simple misdemeanor . . . .”).
Conversely, when an expungable misdemeanor is paired with a nonexpungable
conviction, denying expungement does not hinder the purpose of the statute.
Since the nonexpungable conviction is a matter of legitimate public interest and
cannot be concealed, there would be minimal stigma, if any, imposed by leaving
the related misdemeanor conviction visible next to the more serious
nonexpungable conviction.
III.
We conclude the district court erred in denying Doe’s motion to implement
expungement of his case. We sustain the writ and vacate the order of the district
court. We remand this matter for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
Writ Sustained and Case Remanded.

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