A sealed record allows you to lawfully deny or fail to acknowledge the arrest covered by the sealed record except when:. The first step in the process is to send an application for a certificate of eligibility to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Once FDLE conducts a criminal background check, they will issue a certificate of eligibility if you are eligible. This process takes an average of months to obtain. Once you receive the certificate of eligibility, you can file a Petition with the Court.
If there is no objection from the State and the judge agrees, the judge will issue an Order. Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail.
The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Those considering you for employment or who you are petitioning for a loan cannot look into these records during a background check.
Furthermore, you can generally legally deny that the events on your record never existed. The record itself exists and it may be possible for some entities to find this out, but only a court order to unseal the records for the public interest can make those records accessible to anyone ever again. When your record is expunged, it is as if the offense never happened. Your record is removed or destroyed, and it not available for anyone to access, even by court order.
As with a sealed record, you can legally deny the existence of that the events that were on the record. For example, if you have a job application that asks if you were ever convicted of a criminal offense, you can legally answer "no. An expungement is a more extreme form of clearing your record. An expungement literally wipes the slate clean, with no evidence that you were ever convicted of any criminal offense.
A sealed record serves much the same purpose, but the record still exists; it's just that no one can access it through conventional means. In general, all things being equal, expungement is preferable to sealing a record because there is no chance of the record ever resurfacing. It is possible for a person to have records of a criminal case sealed, meaning that no one may view the contents of his or her file without a court order.
It is also possible, through a process known as expungement, for a person to have the criminal file removed from the public record entirely. Laws regarding expungement, including the types of offenses that may be expunged and the procedure for doing so, vary widely from one state to another.
Justia provides a comprehensive state survey on expungement and record sealing, as well as forms and resources for each state.
It is typically standard procedure to seal records of juvenile criminal proceedings once the person turns 18, along with other criminal cases involving a juvenile, but those records are still accessible with a court order. Expungements are typically available for criminal cases that were dismissed, or that resulted in some form of deferred disposition. They are rarely available for cases that resulted in a conviction.
A pardon, which forgives a person for an offense and cancels any remaining punishment, is only necessary after a conviction. The authority to grant an expungement is vested in judges, while the authority to grant a pardon rests with the President of the United States for federal crimes , or state governors for state-level offenses. State laws defining the requirements to qualify for expungement vary widely. Some states only allow expungements in cases that resulted in the dismissal of the charges before the entry of a plea, such as through successful completion of a deferred prosecution agreement.
Other states might allow expungements after a conviction, but only for certain offenses categorized as minor infractions or misdemeanors. Serious felonies are rarely, if ever, eligible.
A person must file a petition for expungement, often in the same court in which the criminal prosecution took place. The petition only addresses a single criminal case.
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