What charge should I expunge? I have a felony which was for a fake drivers license which I did PTI and so the determination was nolle pros. The other charge was misdemeanor possession of marijuana and the determination was withhold adjudication and pay fine. I am thinking to expunge the felony, but a police officer told me to expunge the misdemeanor instead because the withhold adjudication looks worse on my record than the nolle pros. He said the withhold adjudication is basically a guilty determination and will be harder to get a job with that on my record. I only get one shot at this in Florida, so I want to make the right decision.
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Criminal Records, Expungement What charge should I expunge?
- Thread Starter Sampson
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army judge
Super Moderator
I suggest you discuss this with a couple attorneys in your county.
The advice you're receiving from a cop is useful, but not necessarily probative.
Its YOUR future, speak with a couple lawyers and get ALL of the story.
Then make an informed choice.
The advice you're receiving from a cop is useful, but not necessarily probative.
Its YOUR future, speak with a couple lawyers and get ALL of the story.
Then make an informed choice.
fredrikklaw
Moderator
Nolle Pros, and PTI together?
SAMPSON:
With all due respect to the law enforcement fraternity nationwide, a question such as this should never be posed to a police officer for the answer if not completely wrong, is going to be somewhat biased and misleading. And this officer's response to your question is not going to break that mould and is very much par for the course.
That said, the question, or questions that you should really be asking are: (1) why do you have a felony conviction on your record when you participated in and completed the Pretrial Intervention Program (PTI)? And (2) why did you even participate in the Pretrial Intervention Program (PTI) when a Nolle Pros was entered in your case?
Because in both the entry of nolle pros which effectively dismisses the charges against a defendant and/or the completion of the PTI program the result is more or less the automatic sealing, and/or expunging of the records. As for your misdemeanor charge, a withheld adjudication would have the same force, effect, and result as PTI in the other case. So, it would be quite advantageous for you to check your file to see exactly what is what and you can do that by simply going down the courthouse and reviewing your file, because, you may well be applying to expunge charges that have already been dismissed.
In any event, even assuming that you DO have a (non-violent) felony as well as a run-of-the-mill, garden variety misdemeanor, there should not be a question of which conviction to expunge first and which one second; take care of both matters at the same time. The only difference would be while the petition for expunging a misdemeanor is a one-step process, the felony case has two steps whereby you have to first petition the court to reduce the felony down to a misdemeanor and then apply to have it expunged.
Last but not least, the whole purpose of having records expunged is so that you can have a clean slate so when asked, can safely and honestly tell potential employers in any job application that you have no felony or misdemeanor charges to blight your chances of landing a job. Now, this is true only when applying to private companies for a non-governmental position, because your records will remain visible to government and all its branches, including law enforcement and immigration, for eternity.
fredrikklaw
SAMPSON:
With all due respect to the law enforcement fraternity nationwide, a question such as this should never be posed to a police officer for the answer if not completely wrong, is going to be somewhat biased and misleading. And this officer's response to your question is not going to break that mould and is very much par for the course.
That said, the question, or questions that you should really be asking are: (1) why do you have a felony conviction on your record when you participated in and completed the Pretrial Intervention Program (PTI)? And (2) why did you even participate in the Pretrial Intervention Program (PTI) when a Nolle Pros was entered in your case?
Because in both the entry of nolle pros which effectively dismisses the charges against a defendant and/or the completion of the PTI program the result is more or less the automatic sealing, and/or expunging of the records. As for your misdemeanor charge, a withheld adjudication would have the same force, effect, and result as PTI in the other case. So, it would be quite advantageous for you to check your file to see exactly what is what and you can do that by simply going down the courthouse and reviewing your file, because, you may well be applying to expunge charges that have already been dismissed.
In any event, even assuming that you DO have a (non-violent) felony as well as a run-of-the-mill, garden variety misdemeanor, there should not be a question of which conviction to expunge first and which one second; take care of both matters at the same time. The only difference would be while the petition for expunging a misdemeanor is a one-step process, the felony case has two steps whereby you have to first petition the court to reduce the felony down to a misdemeanor and then apply to have it expunged.
Last but not least, the whole purpose of having records expunged is so that you can have a clean slate so when asked, can safely and honestly tell potential employers in any job application that you have no felony or misdemeanor charges to blight your chances of landing a job. Now, this is true only when applying to private companies for a non-governmental position, because your records will remain visible to government and all its branches, including law enforcement and immigration, for eternity.
fredrikklaw
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