Criminal arrests and convictions damage your record, affecting various aspects of your life. For example, they can make it challenging to find suitable employment and affect how easily you find housing services and other critical services like credit and insurance. Some criminal convictions are automatically deleted from your record after some time if they meet specific conditions, for example, under SB 731. If not, they can remain there for years. However, the law provides expungement, through which you can remove any damaging criminal record and start life from a clean slate. Understanding how this works is critical if you face or have a felony conviction.
A skilled criminal lawyer can help you figure out how long a felony conviction will likely remain on your record. They will also discuss your options and help you with the expungement process if you are eligible.
The Effects of a Felony Conviction on Your Criminal Record
Crimes in California are categorized into infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies. Infractions are less severe and are mainly punishable by a court fine. They also do not result in an arrest. An officer issues you a citation to appear before a judge on a particular date. The judge reviews your case to determine how much of a fine you must pay for the infraction. Since infractions do not result in an arrest, trial, or conviction, they do not appear in your criminal record. Although some can appear in your driving history, they do not appear when someone checks your background.
Misdemeanors are more severe than infractions but not as severe as felonies. You will be arrested for a misdemeanor offense. If the prosecutor has compelling evidence against you, the case will likely go to trial and sentencing. Thus, an arrest and conviction record will appear in your criminal record and will continue to occur until you file for expungement.
Felonies are the most severe crimes under the law. They include crimes like rape, murder, vandalism, burglary, manslaughter, some DUIs, and all violent felonies. Crimes like these will result in an arrest, trial, and a possible conviction. Thus, there will be a record of the same in your criminal record, which will stay until a court expunges it.
Criminal records are generally publicly available. Although not everyone can run a background check on you, critical people and organizations like employers, landlords, insurance companies, and loan lenders always do this. They use background checks to determine a person’s eligibility for employment or service. The information an employer finds after conducting a background check on you will determine how they will treat you. Regardless of your competence, you can be denied a job opportunity based on that outcome. Landlords do the same to decide on a person’s suitability for housing.
Thus, you can miss great opportunities because of a criminal arrest or conviction that occurred long ago. Since these records remain in your background, you cannot convince a potential landlord or employer that you have reformed and can be trusted. Because of your criminal record, a loan lender will likely increase their lending rates. They are unsure of whether you will pay back the loan.
However, you can do something to avoid the negative disabilities and effects of a felony on your record. You can petition the court to expunge the conviction from your record. Expungement changes the status of a criminal conviction, making it appear dismissed. Although you must disclose the conviction when applying for a government office, anyone running a background check may not use it against you.
The Benefits of Record Expungement
Generally, a felony remains on your record for life until you have it expunged through a court petition. Expungements eliminate all the adverse effects and disabilities of a damaging criminal record. People will likely judge you based on what they find in your criminal record, even if you reform. Here are some of the benefits an expungement offers:
A Fresh Beginning
Living with a criminal record can be challenging. A criminal record can cause ongoing anxiety about interactions with law enforcement. Living a comfortable and free life becomes difficult because you always worry that someone will see what you have been up to. A criminal record does the same to you, even after changing your ways. There may be concerns about others discovering your past conviction.
Expungement can provide a sense of relief and a fresh start by mitigating the impact of a criminal record. It deletes your dark past from your record, giving you a fresh start to build your life and live freely. After expungement, you can socialize, find a job, rent a house, and even obtain credit without worrying about the disabilities of a damaging criminal record.
You Can Find Suitable Employment
Employers consider several factors when hiring. In addition to your qualifications and plans, they consider your background since your past can impact your job or employment. A criminal background is a turn-off for most employers. Since they conduct background checks on prospective employees, you will likely miss out on many jobs because of your criminal past. A crime you committed years ago will likely affect you for years.
Expungement can eliminate this problem, allowing you to find a job that suits your qualifications and preferences. Although some employers will still deny you a job based on your criminal past, you can find favor in some places. If this happens, you can grow your career and advance to the levels you have always aspired to, despite your criminal past.
It Gives You a Clean Background Check
When you engage in crime, the mistake follows you for life, in the form of a damaging criminal record. Your background will always remind you of your mistakes from several years ago. Living past those mistakes becomes difficult, even after years of reformation, because your criminal background remains tainted. Fortunately, you can change that through expungement.
Expungement improves the appearance of your background check by changing the status of a criminal record from a conviction to a dismissal. This can reduce your worries, especially when looking for a job or housing. You can confidently make friends, apply for jobs, and enjoy services like insurance or credit without worrying that your tainted background will spoil it for you. A clean background check gives you peace of mind and an opportunity to forge forward in life.
Great Housing Opportunities
People with a criminal background, especially those with a felony, find it difficult to find housing opportunities. No one wants to live next to or close to an ex-criminal. People will always consider you a criminal even after transforming into a law-abiding citizen. That is why landlords are cautious about who to rent to, to protect their tenants and stay in business. They run background checks on all tenants who apply for housing in their community. If you are an ex-convict, you could lose many housing opportunities, even if the conviction occurred years ago.
Expungement is excellent as it deletes the damaging record and opens you up for more housing opportunities. Since landlords can no longer see your expunged record, they will not deny your application based on your criminal past.
If you have completely reformed from crime, you should grab this opportunity to start life on a clean slate.
Expunging a Felony
Remember that felonies are severe crimes under the law, although their severity varies. They are punishable by more than twelve months in prison. Some felonies are graver than others. Prosecutors and judges handle felony cases based on the severity of a crime and the defendant’s criminal history.
Severe crimes like murder and drug crimes are straight felonies. If there is sufficient evidence against you, the court will pass a guilty verdict, and you will receive a felony conviction. However, there are wobbler crimes, which can be prosecuted as misdemeanors or felonies. These are treated according to the severity of a crime and the defendant’s criminal history. The prosecutor has absolute discretion over how to prosecute these crimes.
You get a felony conviction if you are determined guilty through a court trial or enter a guilty or ‘no contest’ plea to a felony charge. These options will take the case to sentencing, whereby the judge will determine the appropriate sentence according to the law and other circumstances of the case. Generally, felonies are punishable by court fines, felony probation, prison sentences, court orders like registering in the sex offender registry, and payment of restitution to victims of crime. Additionally, you suffer the collateral consequence of having a felony conviction on your record.
However, you must be eligible for expungement to file a petition with the court. You qualify if you meet the following criteria:
- You have served the sentence for the offense you wish to expunge, including probation and all its terms and conditions
- The conviction for that offense happened in a state and not in a federal court
- You are not facing charges or serving a sentence for another crime at the time of the application
- The penalties for the offense you wish to expunge did not include a prison sentence. However, as of January 2023, some felony convictions resulting in prison sentences can be eligible for expungement under specific conditions.
If the conviction occurred before the 2011 Prop 47 realignment and you received a prison sentence for a crime, you would receive a less severe sentence after the realignment, and you could be eligible for expungement. Talk to a skilled attorney for advice and guidance through all court processes.
If you meet these criteria, the process of filing for expungement will be as follows:
- Fill in all the documents needed for expungement. A competent criminal attorney can help you with this to ensure you fill out all the required documents and provide the information.
- Once complete, file the documents with the court that heard and determined your case. The judge will review the paperwork to decide whether to consider or deny your application. If they accept your request, the judge will set a court date.
- Attend all hearings regarding the matter in court.
If the court grants your petition, the conviction will be dismissed, and the record will reflect this change. It will appear in your background checks as a dismissed case, which you are not obligated to disclose unless when seeking a public office or state license.
Judges do not always grant expungement petitions. The judge can deny your request if you do not meet the application criteria. If this happens, the felony conviction remains in your criminal background. Additionally, you cannot expunge some felonies, especially those that result in registration in the sex offender registry.
Felonies You Cannot Expunge
Since felonies are the gravest crimes under California law, their impact on your criminal history is significant. Sadly, you cannot expunge some felonies. It is necessary to know about this to prepare yourself for what to expect when you are ready to file for expungement. Generally, severe and violent felonies cannot be expunged. They include crimes like the following:
- The sodomy of a minor, PC 286(c)
- Oral copulation with a minor, PC 287(c)
- Lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, PC 288
- Continuous sexual abuse of a minor, PC 288.5
- Sexual penetration of a minor, PC289(j)
- Some statutory rape offenses
- Some child pornography crimes
These are severe crimes that will likely remain on your criminal record forever. When facing charges for such a crime, your best option is to hire the best criminal defense attorney. The proper defense will likely result in a favorable outcome; the court can reduce or dismiss your charges. Then, you will not have to worry about the effects of a damaging criminal record for the rest of your life.
What You Cannot Get From Expungement
With so many benefits of expungement, you could be tempted to think that all adverse effects and disabilities of a criminal conviction will be taken care of. However, this is not always the case. There are some things you cannot eliminate through expungement. For example, expungement does not eliminate the negative blemish of a crime from your past. Regardless of how much you transform your life, it does not undo what you did. This is something you, the victims, and anyone else involved in your life or the victims’ lives will have to live with.
Additionally, an expungement does not automatically relieve you of some obligations that come with a felony conviction. For example, if you expunge a sex crime that required you to register in the sex offender registry, expungement does not relieve you from that obligation. You must continue registering for the required period, whether for ten years, twenty years, or life. How long you must register in the sex offender registry is mainly dependent on the nature and severity of a sex crime.
An expungement does not restore your lost gun rights due to a felony conviction. Remember that a felony conviction results in the loss of your gun rights for life, meaning that you can no longer buy, possess, or use a gun as an ex-convict in California. This ban continues to exist even after you successfully expunge the felony that led to the loss of your gun rights.
It will not affect the court’s or DMV’s action, like suspending or revoking your driver’s license. Suppose the felony is DUI-related and a conviction resulted in the loss of your driving privileges. In that case, this will remain so, even after the felony DUI conviction is deleted from your account. You must file a separate petition or request a hearing with the DMV to restore your driving privileges.
Expunged felonies also remain priorable offenses under the law, which can be considered in future sentencing. They can affect how a judge penalizes you for a current felony. Suppose you are convicted of a felony whose sentence depends on the number or type of prior felony convictions in your record. In that case, the expunged felony will likely influence the judge’s decision.
A skilled criminal attorney will ensure you understand all these to avoid making mistakes that could result in more trouble with the law. They can also help you determine your options to eliminate some of these consequences of a conviction after expunging the felony conviction.
Find a Competent Criminal Attorney Near Me
A felony conviction is a big deal in Los Angeles because felonies are the most severe offenses under the law. The penalties for a conviction are generally severe, including a lengthy prison sentence, a hefty court fine, and a damaging criminal record that remains so for years. Fortunately, you can expunge a felony conviction after serving your time and meeting all the terms and conditions of your sentence.
At Los Angeles Criminal Lawyer, we understand how much you will likely lose if a felony conviction stays on your record. We can help you determine your eligibility for expungement and take you through all court processes until you eliminate the negative disabilities and consequences. We can help you prepare the necessary documents, file them on your behalf, and plan a solid defense to improve our chances of winning the case. Call us at 310-502-1314 to learn more about expungement and our services.
