- Hey everybody, I'm
Attorney Michael Conte,
I've had several clients
recently ask what's sealing
their criminal records.
So I wanna make a short video
to discuss the three benefits
to sealing your criminal record.
But before we get into that I
wanna talk a little bit about
the difference between expunging a record
and sealing a record.
When you expunge a record,
what happens is all trace
of that record, all police
reports, all information,
all the databases in the courts,
in the police departments,
in the probation office for the state
it's just erased and wiped out forever.
Okay, that's expunging.It's
also much more difficult
to do than sealing a
record, it's only done
under very specific circumstances.
When you seal a criminal
record, what you're doing
is essentially the records
remain in all those places
but when certain people make
inquiries like employers
or other people concerning
whether or not you have
a criminal record and what's
on it, they're simply told
that you have no record.
Now there's an exception
for this, the police still
have access to the record
and the courts who still
have access to the
records particularly when
they're perform their duties relative
to criminal justice matters.
In other words, if you're
picking up new offenses
or you being investigated for
new offenses in particular
the police and courts
are gonna have access
to those records, okay.
So let's talk about the
three benefits that we see
in sealing a criminal record.
The first is that if your
criminal record is sealed
you're not gonna be
disqualified for sitting
for an examination or applying
or receiving an appointment
to any sort of public job, so
in other words you wanna sit
for the civil service
examination, you're not precluded
from doing that, you're not
precluded by your record
from receiving particular
job in either the state
or local governments in Massachusetts,
that's one great effect that sealing has.
Also you're not gonna be
precluded from obtaining
any public housing.
Some people with certain things
on their criminal records
are not allowed in public
housing, if your record is sealed
that doesn't disqualify you
from that, you're also not gonna
be disqualified from
receiving any particular
professional license.
So if you wanna be a lawyer or a doctor
or anything requires professional
license you're not gonna
be precluded from applying for
those things because you have
a criminal record if it's been sealed.
So, in fact in many of the
applications they're supposed
to put a notation
indicating that if you have
a sealed criminal record
you can answer the question
about criminal record
that you have no criminal record.
All right, the second benefit
is that a criminal record
that's been sealed can't
be used against you
in most court proceedings, okay.
There are exceptions but
most court proceedings,
so like if you have a civil
lawsuit or something like that
or something before the border
commission, it's not gonna
be used against you there.
The very limited
exceptions are if you have
a new criminal case, it's
obviously gonna be used against
you there to determine a
number of things like bail
or sentencing if you're found
guilty, things like that
are gonna be used in those circumstances.
Also, if you're involved in any proceeding
that deals with child
custody, so if you've been,
again if you're in a divorce
battle with your spouse
about who gets custody
of the kid or proceeding
in the juvenile court for
abuse or neglect of a child
or something like that, a criminal record
in some circumstances if it's
been sealed will be allowed
to be used there but it's
not just automatically
allowed there.
If one party wants to
use it they have to bring
to the court's attention, they
think such a record exists
and then the court, the
judge looks at it in private,
they call it in camera.
He looks at it on his own
to decide whether or not
there's any relevance to it
and if he decides there's
some relevance there'll be a
hearing to determine whether
or not it can or cannot be used
in that child custody type proceeding.
So in most court proceedings
it's not gonna be able
to be used .
And the third and quite frankly one
of the most important benefits
to sealing the record is that
it's much easier to do
than expunging a record.
It does give you that
protections we talked about
but also as long as your
offense is one that qualifies
and most do qualify for
sealing and you've waited
the required amount of time,
most likely your record
is going to be sealed if
you make such a request.
So those are the three
benefits as we see them
to sealing your criminal record.
If you have any other
questions about sealing
your criminal record, the
benefits, the effects, etc
please feel free to give me
a call, shoot me an email
or leave me a comment below the video.
Thanks and have a great day.
