Sec. 411.081, Gov't Code, provides that a person is entitled to petition for an order of nondisclosure of a misdemeanor for which he received deferred adjudication if he has not been convicted of or placed on deferred adjudication community supervision for other than a traffic violation during the "applicable period" described in 411.081(d)(1): "The payment may be made only on or after the discharge and dismissal, if the offense for which the person was placed on deferred adjudication was a misdemeanor other than a misdemeanor [under Chapters 20, 21, 22, 25, 42, or 46, Penal Code]..." What is that period. Five minutes? One day? We have a situation where a person received DA for misdemeanor marijuana possession, was discharged, then two years later received a misdemeanor DA for criminal trespass. He is now trying to seal the first case. Is there a time limit in such a case? Inquiring minds want to know.

There is no definitive answer to your question, because we have not yet seen an appeal from the denial of a nondisclosure petition (and we are not likely to in the foreseeable future given the near-total discretion of the court to deny a petition in the interests of justice).

I discussed my interpretation of the statute at the end of this post:

https://tdcaa.infopop.net/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=347098965&f=157098965&m=7843081447

In a nutshell, I take the hard line that a recidivist has no right to seal a prior deferred adjudication. The whole point of the statute was to reward the person who gets deferred adjudication, successfully completes it, and whose right to be free from the stigma of a criminal record outweighs the public interest in knowing about it. At the committee hearings, I don't believe anyone took the position that the statute was intended to give relief to repeat offenders.

Some people disagree with my reading of the statute, however, so I believe we should try to clarify it in the next legislative session.