Criminal Records Sealing and Expungement
Anyone with a serious criminal conviction understands that a felony record can represent a major barrier to employment, housing or educational opportunities. Even misdemeanor convictions can cause trouble for people in the job market or those whose professional license applications include a character evaluation component. For dependable advice about your options for sealing criminal records or expungement of old arrest information in Massachusetts, contact the Boston law firm of Steven J. Topazio, Attorney at Law.
Public access to criminal records is covered in detail under Massachusetts law, which regulates access to what's known as the Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI. The Criminal History Systems Board (CHSB) administers requests for criminal records data in background checks, considers applications for correcting errors on CORI reports, and generally monitors the CORI system to make sure that public information is freely available while keeping confidential information about a given offender private.
A CORI report will not only include information about a person's criminal convictions, it will also cover matters such as arrests, dispositions, periods of incarceration or probation, restitution orders, and other data. It should not include information such as psychiatric evaluations or parole board commentary. It's entirely possible to accumulate a fairly fat CORI file without ever having been convicted of anything.
Don't wait 10 or 15 years to seal your criminal records from public view
Expungement of criminal records is offered as a matter of right for many criminal offenses, which means that they will not appear on the CORI report, and will not be held against you in job applications, college applications, rental decisions by landlords, or even the decisions of professional licensing boards. The catch here is that misdemeanor expungement rights do not arise until 10 years after the final disposition of the case, and expungement of felony records cannot occur as a matter of right until 15 years after disposition. The term "final disposition" includes completion of parole after release from prison.
Fortunately, there is another way to achieve expungement of your criminal records. A judge can order expungement on a case-by-case basis if you can demonstrate that your interest in getting on with your life outweighs the public interest in knowing about your past mistakes. Ordinarily, the judge's decision will balance the hardship you have experienced against the public's need for protection, and evidence of rehabilitation or stabilizing circumstances in your life today can make the decisive difference.
Expungement can represent a great opportunity for anyone concerned about the effect of past involvement with the criminal justice system on future prospects. To see how our experience with criminal records and expungement petitions can help you, contact Boston criminal defense lawyer Steve Topazio for a free consultation.
