California expunged record shows up in background check?
I received a misdemeanor about 4 years ago when I was in Santa Barbara, it was expunged a year later.
I just received a job and they were doing a background check and they said something "came up" in Santa Barbara. They'll be getting more information within the next week. Is it possible that what they will see is that there was "something" that was expunged without any detail on it? Or is it more likely that I am just mistaken and it was never expunged in the first place?
Answers:
Contrary to what lots of people think, expungement in California does NOT mean that records are sealed, destroyed, or otherwise unvailable. There will be a record showing that the charge was dismissed under Penal Code section1203.4. Most employers are prohibited from considering "expunged" convictions, but that does not apply to all employers, nor does it apply to state licensing agencies. It is usually difficult to show that an employer has improperly relied upon an expunged conviction. If you think that is happening, the person to consult is an employment law attorney. A criminal defense attorney can do no more for you than has already been done.
It probably wasn't expunged. You need to go have a free consultation with a lawyer and see what your options are. If it was part of the deal that it would be expunged, it needs to be done. They should correct their error.
What you need is a criminal defense lawyer. Only choose one who has a good reputation and who is in good standing. You need to check with the BBB and consumer affairs.
Either the expungement wasn't recorded correctly or reported to the agencies who retain record information, in either case you should ALWAYS have a copy of the expungment to show for just this reason.
Also some arrests still show up even if the conviction is vacated, so you might run into that, as well.
if you have proof that is was expunged - EVERYTHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN DELETED..NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
I work for a District Attorney and when we get notice that the judge has granted an expunction, we have to take our entire file to the court and they destroy them. It should have been taken off of your records by the Department of Public Safety for the state in which you reside. DPS handles what is submitted to NCIC/TCIC which makes up your criminal background.
Welcome to Post Patriot Act America.
NOTHING is SEALED, EXPUNGED, or anything any more. Even your Juvenile records are exposed now days.
When records are expunged, they are sealed. They are not destroyed. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, prison officials, ect. are still allowed to look at them. If you apply for certain jobs for which your record would be important, your employer can look at the expunged records (for example, if you applied for a job at a nuclear power plant).
When your records are sealed, they are removed from public observation. For example, the Clerk of Courts removes your records from his public indexes of cases, and from his public files.
However, if a private company found out about your record before it was sealed, then that information is out and the private companies can display it or sell it.
In California, your privacy is protected by these laws:
1. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
2. The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.
3. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA).
4. Different states have different legal frameworks, such as the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act which exists in California.
You can perform a free background check.
Like many answers, it all depends on the details:
What information do you want?
How much work are you willing to do to get it?
How fast do you want it?
If you are willing to do some work yourself, you can perform a background check on someone for free.
Criminal Background Check:
Criminal records are kept by the Clerk of Courts in each courthouse. Every city, town, county, state, and the federal government have their own courthouses. We know there are 50 states, 3000 counties, and over 30,000 cities, towns, or townships in the USA. That is a lot of courthouses, and most of them do not share their information. However, it is all public information, and you are allowed to review it.
If you know where the subject person has lived and traveled, then you know which courthouse records to check.
Do-it-Yourself Free Background check issues:
a)One problem is finding out your subject-persons lifetime travel history. He could have committed a crime anywhere he has ever been.
b)2nd problem is the amount of work you must do to check every courthouse in those locations.
c)3rd problem is that you could miss important records if you miss any of the locations that your subject-person has been to.
d)4th problem is cost. If the courthouse has digitized their records and published them on a website, then you can often review them for free. But if you must travel to the courthouse, that requires your time and travel costs. Finally, if you get copy of the record, some courthouses charge $1 per page. Wow! That can be expensive.
e)So a do-it-yourself background check may cost you a significant amount of money if you want to perform a complete background check.
Other Records:
You will probably want to check out some other records on you subject-person.
Do your want to know about:
Marriages and Divorces
Bankruptcies
Tax liens
Civil law suits
Professional licenses
Corporate ownership
Property ownership.
All of that information is public, and you can review it. But, you have the same issues that you had with the Criminal Records. The information is not all in one place. You have to find out where it is, and you may have to travel to those locations.
Information Aggregators
On the internet, some companies specialize in collecting all of this public information, putting it in their database, and making it available for instant access. For example, Illinois Youth Soccer (http://www.iysa.org) has a Risk Management publication that refers to http://backgroundsearch.com .
You can review some of this information for free and get the results immediately on the internet.
How to Perform a Do-It-Yourself Free Background Search & Check:
Step #1 – At an information aggregator, like BackgroundSearch.com , you can put in your subject-person’s name and find every city that he lived-in. That website provides this information for free. You can enter as many names as you like, as many times as you like. Now you know which courthouse records to review.
Step #2 – At the same website, you can find a list of the Criminal Record Offices of every city, county, and state in the USA, along with their website (as reported to the U.S. government.).
Step #3.- Go to the courthouse website, or to the courthouse (if they do not have a website), and review their public records.
Step #4 – Back at BackgroundSearch.com, you can find the Record Offices for Vital Records (Marriage, Divorce, Births, Deaths). Repeat step #3 for Vital Records and any other type of records that you need.
Purchasing a Background Check:
If you want to get a complete report, instantly, you can purchase a comprehensive background check from BackgroundSearch.com (or other information aggregators). Every company (without exception) will charge you something for a complete background check. The companies have to cover their costs to gather all of the public information, put it in a database, keep it up to date every day about everyone, and make it available to you on the internet for instant access.
Sex Offenders:
The U.S. government does keep a list of all convicted sex offenders in one place. You can find it here: http://www.nsopr.gov/
Source(s):
Good luck with your background check.
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