Which Court Handles Mississippi Expungement

Filing a Mississippi expungement petition in the wrong court gets it dismissed — and you lose the filing fee. There is no centralized expungement office in the state. The petition must be filed in the exact court where the original case was resolved, and Mississippi's court system splits across four different trial-level jurisdictions relevant to expungement, with different clerks, different procedures, and sometimes different filing requirements.

Mississippi's Four Expungement Courts

Each court handles specific types of cases. The court listed on your disposition or sentencing order is the one you file in.

Municipal Courts

Municipal courts handle city ordinance violations and state misdemeanors that occurred within the physical boundaries of an incorporated city. If you were convicted of a misdemeanor in Jackson, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, or any other incorporated municipality, the petition goes to the municipal court clerk in that city.

Municipal judges have jurisdiction to expunge qualifying first-offense misdemeanors, non-adjudicated municipal cases, and dismissed local charges.

Justice Courts

Justice courts handle county-level misdemeanors and small civil matters. If the offense occurred outside the boundaries of an incorporated city — in an unincorporated area of the county — the case was likely processed through a justice court. Each county has at least one justice court, and the petition goes to the justice court clerk.

In rural counties with small populations, the justice court may be the only court that handled criminal misdemeanors in the area. This is common across Mississippi's eighty-two counties.

County Courts

County courts exist in more populated counties (Hinds, DeSoto, Harrison, among others) and share jurisdiction with circuit courts over certain non-capital felony cases. They also handle juvenile matters through their youth court divisions. If your conviction was entered in a county court, that is where you file.

Not every county has a county court — smaller counties rely entirely on the circuit and justice court system.

Circuit Courts

Circuit courts hold primary jurisdiction over all felony cases. Mississippi has twenty-two circuit court districts, and felony expungement petitions under § 99-19-71(2) are filed with the circuit clerk of the county where the conviction was entered.

Circuit courts are also the exclusive venue for first-offense DUI expungements under § 63-11-30(13), even though DUI is typically a misdemeanor offense. If your DUI conviction was handled at the circuit level, the expungement petition goes to the circuit clerk — not the municipal or justice court where you might have first appeared.

How to Identify Your Court

Start with your criminal history. Request a state background check from the Mississippi Department of Public Safety Criminal Information Center ($32 fee). The report will list each charge with the court of disposition.

If the background check does not clearly identify the court, pull the original charging document — the ticket, citation, indictment, or complaint. The court name and docket number appear on these documents.

For older cases where paperwork has been lost, call the relevant county or court clerk's office. Ask whether they can search by name and date of birth to locate the case and confirm which court division handled it.

Rural County Complications

In Mississippi's smaller counties, court procedures can be less formalized. Some rural justice courts still operate primarily with paper filings and do not use electronic court management systems. The clerk may not have a standardized procedure for handling expungement petitions, and practices can vary even between different justice court districts within the same county.

By contrast, larger jurisdictions like Hinds County have moved to mandatory electronic filing through the Mississippi Electronic Courts (MEC) system. If your case is in a county that uses MEC, your petition must be submitted through that system — not hand-delivered as a paper filing.

Before you prepare your petition, call the clerk's office for the court identified on your records. Ask three questions:

1. Does the court accept paper filings or require electronic submission through MEC?
2. Will the expungement petition be filed within the original criminal case docket, or does the court require a new civil action? (This affects your filing fee — $150 vs. potentially $287+.)
3. Does the clerk's office provide any template forms, or must the petition be custom-drafted?

The answers vary by court and county. Getting them in advance prevents rejected filings and wasted fees.

Multi-Court Cases

If you have charges in multiple courts — for example, a municipal court misdemeanor and a separate circuit court felony — you need a separate petition in each court. One petition cannot cover cases from different jurisdictions. Each petition follows its own filing process, carries its own fee, and is decided independently by its own judge.

This is one of the most common sources of confusion for people with records spanning different courts in different counties. Map out every charge, identify the court for each one, and plan the filings separately.

For the complete filing procedure — including petition templates, clerk contact protocols, and fee strategies for each court type — the Mississippi Expungement & Record Sealing Guide covers every jurisdiction.

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