Many El Paso adults are surprised to learn that a juvenile case from when they were 14 or 16 still exists in the El Paso County juvenile court, the Juvenile Probation Department, the arresting police department and the Texas DPS juvenile justice information system. Juvenile records are confidential by default, but confidential is not the same as sealed: they can still be reached by the military, certain licensing boards, prosecutors and, through errors and data leaks, by private background check companies. Sealing under Texas Family Code Chapter 58 closes the file for good, and once sealed you may legally state that the case never occurred.
Since the 2017 rewrite of Family Code Chapter 58, Subchapter C-1 (sections 58.251 through 58.264) sets out two paths. Under section 58.253, many misdemeanor-level juvenile records are supposed to be sealed automatically once the person turns 19, provided the case did not involve a felony, a sex offense registration requirement or a commitment to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, and there are no pending or adult convictions. In practice the automatic process is frequently missed. Under section 58.256, anyone else, including most felony-level cases, may apply to the juvenile court once they are 18 or two years past final discharge, whichever comes first, as long as they have no pending charges and no adult felony conviction.
Navar Law handles juvenile sealing for a flat fee and you never appear in court. Attorney Robert Navar first requests your juvenile history from the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department and DPS to see whether the record should already have been sealed automatically; if so, we press the court to issue the order without a new application. Otherwise we file an application in the El Paso County juvenile court, serve the prosecutor, and the judge decides on the paperwork or at a hearing the attorney attends alone. Juvenile files are scattered across more agencies than adult files, and a sealing order that misses one leaves the record alive, which is why an attorney's checklist matters.
Automatic sealing vs. sealing by application
Section 58.253 directs the juvenile court to seal misdemeanor cases on its own when the person turns 19 if the case never involved a felony adjudication, sex offender registration or TJJD commitment and the person has no adult felony conviction or pending charges. The El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department is supposed to flag those files, but many are never processed, especially for cases from the early 2000s or earlier. We check first, because a record that qualifies for automatic sealing should not require a full application.
Everything else goes through section 58.256. Felony-level adjudications can be sealed by application, but cases with a determinate sentence, sex offender registration or a transfer to adult court are excluded, and the judge has discretion. Records of a case that was dismissed or never adjudicated are the easiest to seal.
What a sealed juvenile record means for your future
Once the El Paso County juvenile court signs the sealing order, the court, the Juvenile Probation Department, the police, the prosecutor, DPS and any school or agency that received the record must seal it, and section 58.261 lets you deny that the case ever happened, including on job, apartment, college and most professional license applications. The record can only be reopened by court order in narrow circumstances. Military recruiters may still ask about sealed juvenile matters under federal rules, so if you are enlisting from El Paso we will explain how to answer accurately without volunteering more than required.
What's included
- Request and review of your juvenile history from El Paso County Juvenile Probation and DPS
- Determination of whether your record qualifies for automatic sealing under section 58.253
- Drafting of the sealing application under section 58.256 with every record-holding agency listed
- Filing in the El Paso County juvenile court and service on the prosecutor
- Attorney attendance at any hearing the court sets, without you present
- Delivery of the signed sealing order to each agency and a certified copy for your records
How it works
Locate the record
We request your juvenile history from El Paso County Juvenile Probation and DPS, confirm the disposition and discharge dates, and determine whether you qualify for automatic sealing or need to apply.
Application to the juvenile court
We draft the application listing every agency that holds the record, you sign it, and we file it in the El Paso County juvenile court and serve the prosecutor, who may respond.
Sealing order and follow-through
The judge rules on the paperwork or at a hearing we attend for you. We send the signed order to every agency, confirm they comply, and give you a certified copy and a plain explanation of what you may now deny.