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. 

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