Expunge Criminal Records

Expunge Criminal Records

Expungement of criminal records is the process of clearing an individual's records of a crime
committed. There are several other terms used to describe the expungement of criminal records.
Often, it is used in correlation with sealing, destruction, or return to the subject of individual
criminal records kept by government agencies.

Expungement of Criminal Records - An Overview

To expunge criminal records is to involve a trade-off between competing interests. An individual
would like to pursue employment, housing, or other major life activities without the stigma of an
arrest record or a record of conviction. On the other hand, society has an interest in maintaining
criminal records histories for purposes of future crime investigations and in order to make hiring,
rental, and other decisions about individuals. Statutes and cases reflect the tension between
these interests.

There are ways for you to expunge your criminal records. In reality, by statute and by inherent
judicial authority, criminal records may be expunged.

What is Expungement of Criminal Records?

Expungement of criminal records can mean to seal or destroy these records, or return it to the
subjects of the records. The exact remedy in a given situation depends on statutory provisions or
the court's interpretation of its inherent power.

How Criminal Records are Expunged

Although states generally differ in how they expunge records, by most statutes, arrest records
held by law enforcement must be returned to an arrested individual if proceedings are determined
in the individual's favor before specified stages of the criminal justice process. This means that
the individual has the right to have his criminal records of arrest expunged if no further evidence
is found incriminating his involvement in the crime in question and if no other criminal justice
action is pursued.

Also by statute, criminal records held by any criminal justice agency will be expunged or sealed
by court order - but not returned or destroyed. This action is often done if an individual was
convicted in a kind of case covered by the specific state statute or had proceedings resolved in
specified ways that fall short of conviction. Therefore, any criminal records of court filings created
in a case where no conviction was made or in a case where the crime in question falls under the
category specified under the statute may be expunged or sealed by the presiding court.

Finally, the courts have held that they have the power to require the sealing or expungement of
judicial branch criminal records. Also, to a more limited degree, they may exercise this power of
expungement on criminal records held by other branches of state government.