Overview
Every saint has a past and every sinner a future. Criminal law takes cognizance of this universal truth and every accused is provided with ample rights while deciding whether he/she has committed any offence. Prosecution guidelines provide for certain procedural niceties to be extended to a person accused of crime. After all, the law intends to punish the crime, not the criminal. Adversarial system views crime as a wrongdoing against the state and not against a particular person. The interests of the state are represented by the prosecuting attorney. As such, law views the offender sympathetically and treats him/her as innocent until proved guilty and passes the burden of proving the case to the prosecution. The defendant has a right to be presumed innocent unless and until the State has proven each and every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, for instance, if a culpable mental state is required to prove a crime, the prosecution must prove that it existed at the time of commission of the offence. Read more...
Expungement of a criminal record and sealing a criminal record in Washington State are often misunderstood. Both procedures affect a criminal record; but the benefit offered by expungement or sealing, and the effect each has on a criminal background check, is quite different.
Expungement in Washington State, in its technical sense, refers to removing “non-conviction data” from a court file or law enforcement agency database. Examples of “non-conviction data” are an arrest record or a criminal charge dismissed by a court. After the information is deleted, the criminal record is “expunged”. When clearing a criminal conviction from a Washington State record, the “expungement” process is called Vacating a Criminal Conviction.
When a criminal record is expunged, the “non-conviction data” is destroyed. This can include documents, fingerprints, booking photographs, and other information in the court or law enforcement agency database. When a criminal conviction is “expunged”, the court file is not destroyed. Instead, the conviction is “vacated” and the law treats it as if it had not occurred. In fact, when your criminal conviction is vacated, Washington State law allows you to state you have not been convicted of the crime. The conviction no longer appears on a background check. Read more...
