How do I expunge my criminal record in California?
If you have been arrested and no charges were filed, PC 851.8 requires that you submit a “Petition to Seal and Destroy Arrest Records” to the arresting law enforcement agency. The agency then has the option to agree to the petition or deny it. If granted, the police will seal your records for three years.
What is a declaration of factual innocence?
“Factual innocence” legally means that a person is innocent of any criminal act, felony or misdemeanor. A party files a petition for factual innocence (PFFI) in order to destroy arrest records because the arrest should not have occurred in the first place.
What is a certificate of innocence?
A Certificate of Innocence states that you should never have been convicted of the crime you were accused of committing. It removes the conviction from your criminal record and can restore your civil rights. A Certificate of Innocence may also allow you to sue the state for damages caused by the wrongful conviction.
What is a detention certificate in California?
Under California law any person arrested but not charged may be eligible to receive a certificate describing the arrest as a detention. Any case in which a person is arrested and the arresting officer is satisfied that there are insufficient grounds for making a criminal complaint against the person.
What is the difference between legal innocence and factual innocence?
What is Factual Innocence? The term factual innocence is used with slightly different shadings in each of the legal procedures in which it is invoked, but it means essentially that the defendant did not commit the crime even if he was found guilty at trial.
What is the difference between legal innocence and actual innocence?
This is known as legal innocence. A defendant does not have to establish his or her innocence and seldom does a defendant even attempt to do so. Actual innocence is the concept that a person truly is innocent–that he or she did not commit the offense. This often comes up with people who have already been convicted.
What constitutes a wrongful conviction?
A conviction of a person accused of a crime which, in the result of subsequent investigation, proves erroneous. Persons who are in fact innocent but who have been wrongly convicted by a jury or other court of law.
How do you petition the court to seal a record?
In order to file a Petition to Seal Arrest and Criminal Records, you must obtain the proper case report numbers, case numbers, and arrest numbers from the original arrest or criminal records. This information is necessary to ensure that your case is sealed properly, if ordered by the Court.
Is a detention certificate a good thing?
If you were arrested and released, but no charges were subsequently filed, then your arrest was actually only a detention. A Certificate of Detention (Penal Code Section 851.6) may be the best and fastest remedy to “clean up” your arrest record.
What is detention only?
California Penal Code Section 849.5 states “In any case in which a person is arrested and released and no accusatory pleading is filed charging him with an offense, any record of arrest of the person shall include a record of release. Thereafter, the arrest shall not be deemed an arrest, but a detention only”.