In cases where a subject of a story posted on DallasNews.com has received a court-ordered expunction order, and consistent with our efforts to achieve fairness, we have created a process by which content that resides on DallasNews.com may be taken down or updated, with several criteria. For expunction orders only, the following process will be used with respect to take-down requests:
- The request must be made by the person affected in the story or image. No requests from parents, other family members or friends will be considered. Parents or legal guardians may make a request on behalf of a minor.
- A person’s record must be legally expunged. The News does not want to be the judge or jury. This step must happen within the courts.
- The person submitting the request must provide The News with the expunction order and all related legal documents.
- The court expunction order and any other documents must be able to be verified by The News.
- The News reserves the right to assess the case, with the Editor making the final call.
- This process is not available to persons deemed to be public figures or public officials, for whom content will not be removed or altered.
- If a recommendation is made that a take-down is warranted, the subject’s name will be removed from the story posted on DallasNews.com if that story includes more than one subject. If the story references only the subject, the story will be removed from DallasNews.com. In either case, a note of update will appear indicating that there has been a revision or removal of content. This policy applies only to our Website, DallasNews.com, and not to the e-edition or the print newspaper product.
- The News cannot guarantee anonymity or continued appearance of the subject content on search engines or third-party Websites.
We are not considering take-down requests for content other than those requests related to criminal content that is the subject of an expunction order.
Resources:
People can apply for an expunction order with their district clerk’s office, but often an attorney may help navigate this process. The following are some free resources in the area:
- Legal Aid of Northwest Texas does pro bono expunction work for eligible applicants year round. Contact 888-529-5277 Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- UNT-Dallas College of Law offers limited expunction services through its Community Lawyering Center. Contact: 214-855-7892
- The Dallas County District Attorney’s office sponsors an annual Expunction Expo each fall and starts its notification process for the expo each summer. Sign-ups have been completed for 2021 and will re-open in 2022. SMU Dedman School of Law and UNT-Dallas College of Law contribute to this process.
Once your form is submitted, it will be routed to The Dallas Morning News content removal committee. The committee is made up of a diverse set of journalists, who will meet once each month to review cases where an expunction order is present. You will receive an email confirming your request is submitted. The News reserves the right to assess the case, with no guarantees that the content will be removed.
For the Spanish version of this story, click here.
