The arrest (which I just learned from OSBI today is "aggravated assault") was in Cooke county, and the lawyer I spoke with said Cooke is more expensive than most (or perhaps any other) county in Texas. He had recently filed for an expunction there and still had the info handy (he's in Denton county, but his firm has an office in Cooke).
I don't know about Cooke County specifically but smaller counties absolutely tend to have much higher court costs. Also if you want to do this pro se you would have to make the trip to Texas at least once.
And since the Feds already have the info, an expunction may well be a waste of effort and resources if they won't clear their records as well.
I don't know what you mean about the Feds. Was the federal government involved in the charges in someway? If you are referring to your arrest appearing on the national database (NCIC) as well as Texas' database (TCIC) then that is all taken care of through any expunction. DPS for Texas maintains TCIC and the record of your arrest would be removed if an expunction were granted. Any future inquiries to the NCIC database will no longer pull this data from TCIC, hence it will be effectively removed from the national database as well. If an expunction is done and all entities are properly served then not even law enforcement is able to tell you were ever arrested and you are legally permitted to deny the fact that you were ever arrested.
At this point, I'd be happy just to get the arrest record updated to show it was no-billed. Any ideas on how to do that?
That may be even more difficult than getting an expunction. There is no law or policy on how something like a no bill gets reported. A DA's office doesn't really have to do anything once a no bill occurs if they don't want to. They can re-present the charges to another Grand Jury, file a document stating that they do not intend on re-presenting the charges (effectively dismissing the case), or just sit on them and let the statute of limitations run. Regardless of what they choose to do there is no requirement that they file any documentation with the clerk's office showing the case was no billed. Even if they do file something the clerk's office is not required to report that to DPS. Basically, if Cooke county doesn't have a policy of getting no bills reported to DPS, then all you could do is ask them pretty please to do it in your case. Like I said, an expunction is probably easier. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying because it is possible that policies have changed drastically since your arrest since it was so long ago.
I would find out what the District Clerk's Office's records show for your case. See if there is anything in there showing a no bill. If so then you actually could ask them if there is any way they can report that to DPS. If there is nothing showing a no bill you'd have to get the DA's office to file something for you first... and I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
Oh btw... Apparently Texas has a thing ("tolling?") where the statute of limitations clock doesn't tick if/while the accused is out of state. Since I was (and still am) an Oklahoma resident, can that apply to me 33 years later?
Actually yes the statute of limitations doesn't run during any period of time when you have left the state. But this would only come into play if the state wanted to try to charge you again. For purposes of an expunction it doesn't matter if the statute of limitations hasn't run if you fall within one of the other categories for mandatory expunction. In your case (a felony) it has been more than 3 years since the date of arrest and no indictment has issued. You qualify for a mandatory expunction if you jump through the proper hoops.
