In legal terms, an expungement is a legal procedure where someone who is
a first time offender tries to have the records of their offense sealed
by the courts, thus making them unable to be seen in police and federal
criminal databases. When the record is sealed, the legal term commonly
used is that it has been "expunged", essentially making it as if it
never even happened. You should not get the terms "expunge" and "pardon"
confused however, as they both mean very different things in the legal
system. When a criminal record is expunged, as far as everyone is
concerned, the record never existed in the first place. If someone is
granted a pardon, they essentially given forgiveness, but the record
still remains on their profile and is never erased.
There are a number of reasons why someone would seek expungement and
every legal jurisdiction is free to set their own rules regarding how
the procedure is carried out. It is widely accepted that the word
expunge means to take a record away from where it can be seen for
general review. However, a large number of states have provisions set up
so that the expunged records are not gone completely from databases
that are accessible by police officers, judges, who made need the
information to determine future sentencing and lock up facilities, which
may house an inmate for a future conviction.
Keep in mind, though, that not just any crime can be expunged. There are
certain crimes that are eligible and others that are ineligible for
expungement. Most crimes are able to be expunged as long as a certain
number of requirements are met beforehand. Some of these include things
like waiting a certain amount of time between the crime and requesting
expungement, not having anymore related crimes, having less than a
certain number of crimes, the cannot be too serious of an offense, and a
probation period completed. Some of the crimes that are ineligible to
be expunged include felonies where the victim was younger than 18, rape,
sexual assault, corrupting someone who is underage, sexual annoyance
and obscene gestures aimed at or pornography involving an underage
individual.
As mentioned earlier, each jurisdiction can set its own expungement
rules. And each state can determine what can qualify to be expunged, as
well as decide to not allow any records to be expunged whatsoever. If a
record is eligible to be expunged, it can take anywhere 3 months and
sometimes as long as year for more complex crimes. The average should be
around 6 months however.
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