Indiana First-Offender Conditional Discharge

Last verified: April 2026

What Conditional Discharge Is — and Is Not

Conditional discharge under IC 35-48-4-12 is a deferred-disposition mechanism. The defendant pleads guilty (or no contest) to a qualifying misdemeanor possession charge; the trial court accepts the plea but defers entry of judgment; the defendant is placed on a period of court-ordered supervision; and on completion of conditions, the case is dismissed without a conviction ever being entered on the record.

It is not decriminalization. It is not expungement. It is not Marion County’s declination policy. It does not erase the underlying arrest. And it cannot be invoked in cases where the underlying offense is a felony — the felony tier of IC 35-48-4-11, all of IC 35-48-4-10 dealing, or any felony enhancement.

If a person who has no prior conviction of an offense under this article or under a law of another jurisdiction relating to controlled substances pleads guilty to possession of marijuana, hashish, salvia, or a synthetic drug as a misdemeanor, the court, without entering a judgment of conviction and with the consent of the person, may defer further proceedings and place the person in the custody of the court under conditions determined by the court.

Indiana Code § 35-48-4-12(a)

Who Qualifies

The statute is structured around four hard limits:

• No prior controlled-substances conviction. Any prior IC 35-48-4 conviction — or a substantially similar conviction from another state or federal court — disqualifies the defendant from conditional discharge. “Prior” means a conviction, not an arrest, but conditional-discharge dispositions in other jurisdictions can themselves count as priors depending on how the underlying case was resolved.
• Misdemeanor only. The current offense must be a misdemeanor possession of marijuana, hashish, salvia, or a synthetic drug (the statute’s synthetic-drug umbrella has been read by Indiana courts to include smokable hemp in the post-SEA 516 enforcement window).
• Defendant’s consent. Conditional discharge requires the defendant’s consent — the plea, the deferred judgment, and the conditions of court custody must all be agreed to.
• Court’s discretion. The court “may” defer further proceedings, not “shall.” Indiana judges retain full discretion to refuse conditional discharge even when statutory eligibility is met.

One-Time-Only

IC 35-48-4-12 is structured as a single-use provision. A defendant who has previously received conditional discharge in Indiana is not eligible for a second deferred disposition under the same statute. A defendant with a prior conditional discharge in another state for a controlled-substances offense is generally read out of eligibility on the same logic, although case-specific arguments are sometimes available.

Typical Conditions of Court Custody

The statute places the conditions of court custody “under conditions determined by the court” without enumerating them. In practice, conditions in Marion, Monroe, Allen, St. Joseph, Tippecanoe, and other Indiana counties typically include:

• A drug-education program (often a state-approved IPRC or NORML-style class)
• Random urinalysis screening throughout the supervision period
• Community service hours (often 24–40)
• Court costs and a supervision fee
• A no-arrest condition (any new arrest during the supervision period typically triggers revocation)
• Compliance with any mental-health or substance-use treatment recommendations

Supervision periods commonly run six months to one year, though the statute does not specify a duration.

What Happens If Conditions Are Met

On successful completion of the conditions, the court enters an order dismissing the case. No judgment of conviction is entered. The defendant’s response to a future application asking “have you ever been convicted of a crime” can truthfully be “no” with respect to the conditional-discharge case.

However, the underlying arrest record remains. Indiana’s expungement statute, IC 35-38-9, governs separately whether the arrest can be sealed, and it imposes its own waiting periods and procedural requirements. A successful conditional discharge is not automatically followed by expungement; the defendant must initiate a separate expungement petition.

What Happens If Conditions Are Violated

On a finding that the defendant violated the conditions of court custody, the trial court can enter judgment of conviction on the original guilty plea and impose the sentence applicable to the underlying misdemeanor. The defendant has effectively waived the right to litigate the underlying case — the plea was entered when conditional discharge was accepted — and the post-violation hearing is limited to the violation itself and the sentence to be imposed.

How It Differs From Marion County’s Declination Policy

In September 2019, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears (D) announced that his office would not file criminal charges for simple possession of less than one ounce of marijuana. That is a prosecutorial-discretion policy, not statutory conditional discharge. A Marion County declination case never sees a court — no plea, no conditions, no dismissal — whereas conditional discharge runs entirely inside the courtroom. Outside Marion County (in particular Allen, Tippecanoe, and Vanderburgh), where prosecutorial declination is not the norm, IC 35-48-4-12 conditional discharge is the principal first-offender pressure valve.

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