Crone, J.
In April 2006, Naveed Gulzar was convicted of class D felony theft. In August 2016, his class D felony conviction was converted to a class A misdemeanor conviction. In November 2018, Gulzar filed a petition pursuant to Indiana Code Section 35-38-9-2 to expunge conviction records for a class D felony conviction converted to a class A misdemeanor conviction. The trial court denied his petition solely on the basis that the waiting period required under Section 35-38-9-2(c) had not been satisfied because five years “after the date of conviction” had not yet elapsed. Gulzar filed a motion to correct error, which was also denied.
Gulzar appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in using the date of his misdemeanor conviction to determine whether the five-year waiting period in Section 35-38-9-2(c) had been satisfied and that he is entitled to expungement because it has been more than five years since the date of his class D felony conviction. In an issue of first impression, we conclude that Section 35-38-9-2(c)’s requirement that a person wait at least five years “after the date of conviction” before petitioning a court for expungement means five years from the date of the misdemeanor conviction, and not, as Gulzar urges, the date of the class D felony conviction. Therefore, we affirm.
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The expungement statutes are found in Indiana Code Chapter 35-38-9, and the requirements for expungement depend on the type of conviction. … In November 2018, when Gulzar filed his petition, that statute provided,
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) and section 8.5 of this chapter, this section applies only to a person convicted of a misdemeanor, including a Class D felony (for a crime committed before July 1, 2014) or a Level 6 felony (for a crime committed after June 30, 2014) reduced[4] to a misdemeanor.
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(c) Not earlier than five (5) years after the date of conviction (unless the prosecuting attorney consents in writing to an earlier period), the person convicted of the misdemeanor may petition a court to expunge all conviction records, …
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(e) If the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that:
(1) the period required by this section has elapsed;
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the court shall order the conviction records described in subsection (c) expunged in accordance with section 6 of this chapter.
Ind. Code § 35-38-9-2 (emphases added). “Our court has interpreted this statute as ‘unambiguously requir[ing] expungement when all of the statutory requirements are satisfied.’” J.B. v. State, 27 N.E.3d 336, 339 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) (quoting Taylor v. State, 7 N.E.3d 362, 365 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014)).
The only question before us is whether Gulzar filed his petition for expungement five years “after the date of conviction” as required by Section 35-38-9-2(c). … Our courts have not addressed whether, in cases where a class D felony conviction has been converted to a class A misdemeanor, “the date of conviction” for purposes of the five-year waiting means the date of the class D felony conviction or the date the class D felony conviction was converted to a class A misdemeanor.
[Gulzar] asserts that the judgment of conviction entered in 2006 has never been vacated or withdrawn but was only amended, and is therefore the conclusive judgment of conviction date that should be used. He further notes that because twelve years have passed since his 2006 judgment of conviction, he would have met all the statutory provisions for expungement of class D felony conviction records under Section 35-38-9-3, including its eight-year waiting period. …
The State counters that the plain language of Section 35-38-9-2 imposes a five-year waiting period for expungement of misdemeanor conviction records and there is no relation-back provision to include the time period before the class D felony conviction was reduced to a class A misdemeanor. We agree with the State.
… Based on the plain and ordinary meaning of the terms in Section 35-38-9-2, we conclude that “the date of conviction” in subsection (c) means the date of the misdemeanor conviction and not the date of the class D felony conviction.
… for five years after the conversion, a prosecutor may petition a court to convert the class A misdemeanor conviction back to a class D felony if the person is convicted of a felony within that time. This provision can only have its full effect if a person whose class D felony was converted to a class A misdemeanor is required to wait five years after the conversion before filing a petition for expungement under Section 35-38-9-2.
We acknowledge that there is an incongruity between the waiting period required for expungement of conviction records for a class D felony and the longer waiting period required for a class D felony conviction converted to a class A misdemeanor. Under Section 35-38-9-3(c), a person convicted of a class D felony must wait eight years after the date of conviction to petition a court for expungement. However, a person who has a class D felony conviction converted to a class A misdemeanor will have to wait longer. … This incongruity is one that our legislature might consider addressing.
Because Gulzar was convicted of class A misdemeanor theft in August 2016, five years after the date of his conviction have not elapsed, and therefore he is not entitled to expungement of his misdemeanor conviction records under Section 35-38-9-2 at this time. Therefore, we affirm the denial of Gulzar’s petition for expungement.
Affirmed.
Kirsch, J., concurs.
Baker, J., dissents with opinion.
I respectfully dissent. The majority explains the many rules of statutory construction, including rules of general applicability and rules that are specifically relevant to this case. In my view, two of those rules should lead to a different conclusion. First, as a general rule, “we presume that the General Assembly intended its language to be applied logically and so as not to cause an unjust or absurd result.” Marshall, 52 N.E.3d at 43. Second and particularly relevant here, “[t]he expungement statutes are inherently remedial and, as such, should be liberally construed to advance the remedy for which they were enacted.” Cline, 61 N.E.3d at 362.
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In my view, the rules of statutory construction lead to only one reasonable conclusion—that “the date of conviction” refers to the original date of conviction, rather than the date on which the felony was converted to a misdemeanor. Therefore, I believe we should reverse and remand with instructions to grant Gulzar’s expungement petition.