Post-Conviction Relief Options in California

California has built one of the country’s broadest toolkits for repairing a criminal record — but the tools are not interchangeable. Choosing the wrong one wastes months; for immigrants, the wrong one can be worse than nothing. Here is the landscape, and how we decide which remedy fits which goal.

The quick comparison

Remedy	What it does	Helps immigration?	Typical use
Motion to vacate — § 1473.7	Conviction/sentence declared legally invalid; plea withdrawn	Yes — defect-based vacatur removes the conviction for federal immigration purposes	Immigration consequences; innocence; Racial Justice Act
Motion to vacate — § 1016.5	Vacates plea where the court failed to give the statutory immigration advisement on the record	Yes, when it applies	Older pleas with a silent transcript
Expungement — § 1203.4	Case dismissed after probation; conviction remains for some purposes	No — still a conviction under federal immigration law	Private-sector employment
Felony reduction — § 17(b)	Wobbler felony becomes a misdemeanor	Sometimes indirectly (offense classification)	Employment, licensing, restoring rights
Habeas corpus — § 1473	Constitutional challenge while in custody	Can, but custody requirement limits it	People still serving a sentence
Certificate of rehabilitation / pardon	Formal recognition of rehabilitation	Generally no for the conviction itself	Licensing, civil rights, sex-offender relief in some cases
Clean Slate automatic relief / sealing	Automatic dismissal/sealing of qualifying records	No — rehabilitative, not defect-based	Background checks, housing, employment

Why “helps immigration?” has such short answers

Federal immigration law honors a state court’s removal of a conviction only when the reason is a legal defect in the original proceedings. Relief granted to reward rehabilitation or to spare someone hardship still counts as a conviction federally. That single principle explains the whole table: § 1473.7 and § 1016.5 vacate for defect, so they work; § 1203.4 and the Clean Slate laws are rehabilitative, so they don’t. It is also why the wording of the court’s order matters — we draft proposed orders that say precisely why the conviction was invalid.

§ 1016.5: the older cousin worth checking first

Since 1978, California courts must advise every defendant on the record that a plea may have immigration consequences. Where the record shows the advisement was never given, § 1016.5 provides its own vacatur path, with a statutory presumption in the defendant’s favor when no record exists. When the transcript contains the advisement, § 1016.5 fails — but § 1473.7 may still succeed, because the question there is what you actually understood, not what was recited. We routinely evaluate both in the same review.

Sentence modifications that change immigration math

Some immigration consequences turn on the sentence, not just the offense — the “aggravated felony” label often depends on a 365-day sentence. California allows specified sentence corrections (for example, the § 18.5 rule making misdemeanor maximums 364 days, applied retroactively). Where a one-day change unmakes an aggravated felony, that narrow motion can matter as much as a full vacatur. These are chess moves; they need to be played in the right order with the immigration case.

Stacking remedies

Remedies combine. A vacatur may be followed by a plea to an immigration-neutral charge, then that charge reduced and eventually dismissed. A client whose motion is not yet strong may pursue an expungement now for work while we develop the vacatur record. The strategy depends on the goal: immigration first cases run through § 1473.7; employment only cases often start faster elsewhere. See employment & licensing and immigration benefits for each track.