Criminal Record Expungement

A criminal history is the summary of an individual’s contacts with law enforcement agencies. It provides details of all arrests, convictions, sentences, parole violations as well as dismissals and not guilty verdicts committed by an individual. Criminal history may be used by potential employers, lenders, and others to assess a person’s trustworthiness. in a nut shell your record is used to evaluate your personality and possible predict your future actions. Criminal records may also be relevant for international travel often used to determine either the approval or decline of Visas, residential permits, citizenship and for the charging and sentencing of persons who commit additional criminal offenses. criminal records can also refer to the database of criminal cases that are maintained by through local and county court systems. These records are generally public and can be accessed by anyone, regardless of their connection with the person being searched. Since an expungement offers you a fresh start of sorts, one of the most important actions that people who have been arrested or convicted can take is to investigate different expungement procedures.

How a criminal record may affect you

Child custody: Having a criminal record may limit child custody rights, especially if the charges involve violent acts or instances of domestic abuse.

Immigration: Criminal records can prevent a foreign national from nationalizing in a new country becoming a naturalized citizen, or obtaining a change in immigration status.

Employment: Criminal convictions can often make it more difficult for a person to find employment. Most employers require criminal background checks.

Driving and other privileges: Having criminal records can result in a person losing driving privileges, rights to owning a firearm, and other rights

Subsequent criminal case: Additional criminal charges can result in more severe penalties and sentencing if a person already has a criminal record on file

How we can help

When it comes to record expungement, we don’t have a fixed procedure the approaches we take depends on a number of factors. All legal expungement processes often start by checking with your county’s criminal court, or even the law enforcement agency that handled your arrest. Specifically, asking the following questions determining your eligibility for expungement:

What offenses are eligible for expungement?

When can I be eligible for expungement?

What are the requirements to have my record expunged?

Based on the answers to those questions we could be able to determine the particular strategy that can be applied to your particular situation.

Some of the legal Expungement approaches

A) Motion to Vacate Judgement

A Motion to Vacate Judgment is a specific request for the court to withdraw its judgment or order that it previously entered. Additionally, a motion to vacate judgment may be granted to a party that can show that it didn’t have a proper chance to present or prove their case.

Note: The motion to vacate can be applicable in one of the following situations

A proven legal mistake must have been made by the prosecutor, judge or defense attorney, for this motion to be filed and initiated.
Newly discovered evidence which couldn’t have been discovered in time to justify a new trial
Fraud, misrepresentation or any other type of misconduct by the opposing party
Unavoidable casualties which prevented a party from prosecuting or defending

B) No-Disclosure

Non-disclosure of criminal records can prevent other people from learning about the details of criminal charges and cases prohibiting public entities such as courts and police departments from disclosing certain criminal records. Nondisclosure are legally freeing from disclosing information about your criminal history in response to questions on job applications. You do not need to mention information related to the offense that is the subject of an order of nondisclosure

Juvenile criminal records, except for the most serious ones, can be completely Sealed when the juvenile turns 18

C) Appealing

Most civil and criminal decisions of a state or federal trial court (as well as administrative decisions by agencies) are subject to review by an appeals court. Whether the appeal concerns a judge’s order or a jury’s verdict, an appeals court reviews what happened in prior proceedings for any errors of law or development in findings and evidence. This means any party can appeal a verdict, if evidences show errors included or facts left out during legal proceedings.

How appeals can help expurgate a criminal record

Mitigation of adult felonies to misdemeanors and finally Expungement

Mitigation of misdemeanors to infractions and finally Expungement

Note: Appealing can only be effective if the charges convicted of were “wobblers “

D) Motion for Factual Innocence

A motion for factual innocence is applicable and considered to individuals innocent of a crime of which they were arrested for committing. When you are arrested for a crime that you did not commit, we can petition to the court on your behalf to have your record sealed and destroyed. This requires filing a formal motion to destroy your record with the police department that arrested you. The police department has 60 days to respond to your request. If they fail to respond or deny your request, you can then file a motion with a court that has jurisdiction over the matter.

If you were arrested and no charges were filed, you may be able to have the arrest record completely sealed and then destroyed

Note: This method is applicable in situations

You were detained by police, but not officially arrested for a crime,

has been arrested for an offense, but not formally charged,

was formally charged for a crime, but the charges were later dismissed.

Have been formally charged for a crime and tried for that crime, but there was no criminal conviction.

E) Applying for a Pardon

When a person convicted of a crime is Pardoned. It doesn’t mean that the guilty verdict is overturned, but that the person receiving a pardon will no longer be punished for the crime. When someone receives a pardon, they are free from any punishment or penalties. For example, felons face a number of restrictions: they can’t vote, serve on juries, run for office, or own fire arms, and they can be discriminated against by employers and governmental institutions. A pardon serves to restore those rights to the convicted person. However, you cannot become eligible for a pardon until five years after you have completed your sentence. Pardons allow people who have been convicted of a criminal offence and completed their sentence to have their criminal record removed from the Police Information Centre database. This often does not mean that the criminal record will be deleted. It only means that when someone searches for that person’s criminal record on the database, no criminal record will be found this can be helpful to individual with records who intend to apply for a job, get a rental property and possible a credit

Note: The following instances below are likely not to be pardoned

You cannot obtain a record pardon if you have committed three or more offences that were prosecuted by indictment and you were sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more for each offence.
If you have been convicted of a summary offence, you must wait at least five years after your sentence has been completed to qualify for a record pardon.

Alternatively

In a situation your case is unique in nature and does not match the available solutions made mention above feel contacting us to know other available options that could be feasible for your situation