Dismissed charges still appear on your criminal record
Individuals will often call my office days, weeks or even months after their case has been resolved. Sometimes they had another lawyer or represented themselves and they want to know what impact the old case will have on their criminal record. First and foremost it is important to recognize that what most people are referring to is actually the NCIC. That stands for National Crime Information Center. It is the agency under the FBI that is responsible for tracking crime and arrests. When the police want to determine if you have committed a crime in the past, they look to your NCIC. When you are applying for a job or to school/university, they may or may not have access to the NCIC. There are other places that will keep track of your court cases. The DMV and obviously the court system, are just two of the other places that will maintain information about your past charges.
That much said, lets say that you have applied for a job and were turned down because of a previous arrest. You know want to try to get that arrest off your record so that other jobs won’t see it during the application process.
Virginia is unfortunately very strict about what can be taken off the books. Otherwise referred to as expunging your record, if approved your charge will be removed and all records of the arrest will be destroyed. Under Virginia law, only certain people are eligible for expungment. You are only eligible if the charge against you was dismissed or you were otherwise found not guilty.
If a judge found you not guilty you can have it removed.
If the Prosecutor dropped the charges you can have it removed.
If the Prosecutor reduced the charges, you can have the more serious initial charge removed, but not the one that you on which you were found guilty. (this is actually an oversimplification of the rule in this circumstance. It is a very complicated area of law that you will want to discuss with an attorney. In a nutshell, if the guilty charge is not a lesser included it can be removed, otherwise it stays. Again, discuss that issue with an attorney.)
If the case was dismissed as the result of a deferred disposition, you cannot have it removed. Again, sometimes what appears to be a deferred disposition is actually not one. You should again get paperwork from the court about your case and take that to a lawyer.
If you have no record and the dismissed charge was a misdemeanor, you have an absolute right to the expungment. In Fairfax, the court system has placed a guide online that will walk you through how to do it. In Alexandria, there is a guide for sale in the library. Other jurisdictions may have information available in other locations.
However, if the old charge was a felony you may be required to demonstrate “manifest injustice”, to get the expungment. This may be more than just saying that it was inconvenient. Much more complicated than a misdemeanor, you will want to prepare this with a lawyer who is versed in these sorts of cases.
Essentially, if you are having problems getting employment, housing or any other issues because of your previous record you should talk to someone to see if it can be cleaned up. Even though Virginia has strict rules about sealing records, it is certainly worth a brief conversation to see if you can improve your situation.
If you think you may be eligible or simply want to discuss your circumstances in more detail, use the link on the side to email us your name, type of charge you want removed, the court where it happened (Fairfax, Arlington, etc), and anything else you remember about the disposition of the case. It doesn’t matter whether it was dismissed because a witness didn’t show or because you didn’t do it, the facts don’t matter at this point, you don’t get to try to retry a case. All that we need to know is what the judge did.
