Appellate panel weighs whether ambiguous trial order blocks expungement after judicial diversion

An appellate court panel on Wednesday heard arguments over whether Brooke Henson is entitled to have her criminal record expunged after completing a period of community-corrections supervision that the parties say was intended to be judicial diversion.

Kylene Ross, an attorney who said she practices in Gallatin and is a member of the Sumner County Bar, told the panel that Henson completed roughly four years of community-corrections supervision, paid fines and costs, and sought expungement by letter after her supervision expired. Ross said the district attorney then requested a hearing, and at that hearing Henson — unrepresented — was questioned about earlier probation-violation matters instead of receiving the expungement order she expected.

The central question, Ross told the panel, is whether a 2020 trial-court order effectively returned Henson to judicial diversion (which would make expungement ministerial once she completed the diversionary period) or instead revoked diversion and imposed a sentence, which would bar expungement under the state's statutory scheme.

The dispute turns on a single, ambiguously worded trial-court order. Ross recounted the case history: Henson entered a conditional guilty plea in September 2019 to an…