United States v. James P. Smith

ORDER

The memorandum disposition in the above-entitled case filed June 18, 1991 is amended and redesignated a per curiam opinion.

OPINION

The United States appeals an order of the district court expunging James P. Smith’s criminal record. The district court believed that under its inherent equitable powers it could expunge all record of Smith’s felony convictions, without any finding or allegation that the convictions were unconstitutional or in violation of statutory authority. The court relied on Smith’s “otherwise clean background,” the relatively minor nature of his offenses, his successful completion of the five-year probationary term imposed for those convictions, and his laudable purpose for seeking the expunction — to reenlist in the United States Army Reserves during the Persian Gulf War. 745 F.Supp. 1553 .

Here, there was no statutory authority for the district court’s expunction order. Instead, the court assumed that among its inherent powers was that of expunction of criminal convictions in appropriate cases. Indeed, we have sanctioned the remedy of expunction of criminal records in civil rights cases involving unconstitutional state convictions. See, e.g., Maurer…