The shadow of expungement




Recently a question was asked regarding expungement (expunction) of criminal records.  This reminded me of a scenario I've seen a few times that might be helpful to someone here.

I have seen expungement (expunction) leave a “shadow” on a person's record. Here's the scenarios I've seen: 

The “conviction” was expunged, but the arrest record with the police department wasn’t included in the destruction of the file. The arrest warrant was missed whenever the court expunged the conviction.  Since the entire court file gets destroyed, the arresting agency, which keeps its own records, has no order to show that the arrest should be removed from the record.  That scenario created a real issue for the individual since the file was destroyed with the court but not the arrest with the police department. 

I’ve also seen one (1) conviction get expunged, but a companion conviction not be expunged. In that instance the companion sentence referred to the now expunged case. 

My preference, when dealing with these scenarios, is to indicate to whoever is requesting the person's information, that there is an expunged conviction.  Why, I always like to give the company or person needing the information the full picture.  Why, shadows aren't hard to see. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The words on the title matter

Image
 Why does the proper titling of real estate matter? In my law practice, this situation has come up several times:   A couple is married.  Real estate is owned BUT only titled in one (1) of the spouse's names.  Even if they are both listed on the mortgage, only one (1) of them is on the title.  The titled owner then passes away without a Will. Who owns the real estate? Generally, for a husband and wife, the real estate is titled so that it passes entirely to the living spouse.  But, in our situation, the land was only titled in the name of the deceased spouse.  So, not all of the real estate passes to the living spouse. The Tennessee statute (31-2-103) tells us that real estate solely owned by the one (1) spouse immediately passes on death to his or her heirs.  The Tennessee statute (31-2-104) tells us who those heirs are. In this instance, if the person died with one (1) spouse and one (1) child.  According to the statute, the spouse and the child now both co-own the real estate. 
Read more

My advisor helped me leave my estate to my cat.

Image
This is a true story, from a lady who was in my office witnessing a client signing her Will.   It is also an example of the unlicensed practice of law.   I am both an attorney and an insurance agent. I have two (2) licenses. One (1) was hard to get. One (1) wasn’t. Guess which one (1) fits each category.   There is a lot of argument in the insurance and financial world about helping clients draft their Wills, Trusts and Powers of Attorney while getting paid to do so. Why?  Money .   Tennessee defines the practice of law as: As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires: (1) “Law business” means the  advising or counseling for valuable consideration  of any person as to any secular law,  the drawing or the procuring of or assisting in the drawing for valuable consideration of any paper,   document or instrument affecting or relating to secular rights, the doing of any act for valuable consideration in a representative capacity,  obtaining or tendin
Read more