Comments on: The Reincarnation of Expunged Criminal Records

By: Rodney Hall

Rodney Hall — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:58:17 +0000

If a person had his criminal record expunged in a domestic violence case involving a handgun, from a previous relationship and now his ex-wife has filed a police report for physical and mental domestic violence.Does the ex-wife have any liability in sharing this with anyone to show a pattern of violence.

By: Jenisis Azolean

Jenisis Azolean — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:26:42 +0000

Eleven years ago I was still a kid living on the streets to get away from a violent family member. I worked full-time and attended school. On the way home from work one night I made a judgmental error and took what I thought would be a great shortcut. To make a long story short, I was convicted of a felony I could not fight and didn’t do. I did two years of probation, paid a small fine, and had my record expunged.

In the eleven years since then, I’ve not so much as gotten a speeding ticket. I’m an active member in youth groups and counseling, I’m a home school teacher, and I’ve expanded to programs that include handicapped children of all ages. In an effort to fund my handicapped programs, I needed to get another job. It was then that I found my expunged record had come back to haunt me. Not only is it preventing me from getting a second job, but now my teaching career is in jeopardy.

How can an expunged record be made so public? Even the company that performed the background check agrees that the records show they are expunged, but would not give this information to my potential employer. They chose for themselves what information to give them and what not to give them.

My question her is: Is there a happy medium? How can we expose people who are violent criminals without harming those with records who aren’t? Who is supposed to be held responsible–and to what degree–for the level of information sharing available today? What, if anything, can be done to correct a situation where the information is being deliberately misused?

By: JessO

JessO — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:28:35 +0000

This is definitely a problem because even though criminal records can be removed from the justice system, it doesn't affect the private companies that have the record on their own database. the only advice that can be given is if you know for sure that your record has been expunged, and it comes up on an employer search, you can tell them that there has been a mistake and ask them to check with the justice agencies so that they can make changes to their records. But wouldn't it all be great for everyone if there was a way to automatically remove records from these private companies once a record is expunged?

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:56:45 +0000

I would think truth would be an absolute defense here – if the person had, in fact, been convicted of a crime, the fact that the government later expunges it from their records doesn’t mean it has to be expunged from private records…and while I agree the government could condition access to records with an expungement, third parties who have it in their records would presumably beyond such agreements. (like reading about it in published police reports etc.)

I am however sympathetic to the plight of the potential expungee – here in MD, it is an ongoing irritant that one must request an expungement of records (with a fee) for instances of Nolle Pros’, Not Guilty and Stets. I think expungement s/b automatic in these instances with no records released until the matter is adjudicated.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:49:33 +0000

What if there were liability for including expunged information in someone’s record? I suppose someone could already press some sort of reputational tort theory, though the hard part may be knowing who had what information that caused the reputational harm. But I wonder if it were clearly going to be very expensive for the commercial databases to be wrong if they would go out of their way to make sure they’d be right.

By: Michael Lee

Michael Lee — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:14:12 +0000

I agree. The problem is nearly hopeless. Google sweeps newspapers and public records. Once it gets in Google, it gets redistributed back downward into private data bases. At that point the information cannot be expunged. In fact, the fact that it may be ordered expunged may become part of the public domain.