The new law allows a person to seal their juvenile adjuducations as long as they have no more than three offenses that would not have been considered a felony if the same offense was committed by an adult. A person becomes eligible for sealing either one year after the imposition of disposition, one year after completion of detention for the adjudication, or once a person becomes eighteen years old, whichever date comes latest.

Multiple adjudications for offenses that occurred within a twelve hour span of time and were motivated by a single intent may be considered a single adjudication for the purposes of sealing.

The law does not allow for the sealing of traffic offenses or any offense that would carry a life sentence as an adult.

If you have a criminal record in Indiana please take our free eligibility test to see if you are eligible to clear it.  If eligible, there will be information regarding the service and price.  If you are not eligible, a new law may come into effect on July 1st that would make many eligible.  Therefore, we suggest you contact us after that date if you not currently eligible.

RecordGone prides itself on clearing over 10,000 cases and helping client with the highest levels of customer support. The law firm has earned “A” ratings from the Better Business Bureau for five straight years and offers a low-price guarantee on almost every service.

Higbee explained to the committee that, despite California’s many innovative programs designed to help former offenders, California’s expungement law still leaves many former offenders set-up to fail.

“In many ways, California is very progressive and innovative when it comes to helping former offenders. We provide drug treatment, continuing education, job training and even tattoo removal. But California does not remove the one thing that many other states do, and that is the label of criminal. California’s law governing expungement and other post-conviction remedies are inadequate, as a result, all of those investments in rehabilitation and training are marginalized— leading to unnecessary unemployment, under-employment, and waste of human capital,” said Higbee.

The current version of SB 530 expands the eligibility for certificate of rehabilitation and codifies a regulation that prohibits employers from discriminating against people with an expunged conviction. Higbee says that the bill will likely be amended to provide bigger benefits to more people.

“I am expecting the bill to create a new legal remedy that will allow some offenders to have convictions removed from their Department of Justice report, commonly know as a Live Scan report,” said Higbee.

State Senator Tim Solobay recently reintroduced a bill, Senate Bill 391, to allow for more leniency in expungement law. The current law states that crimes other than summary offenses can not be expunged until after the offender turned 70 years old or has been deceased for more than three years. With the new bill, which was officially amended on February 12, 2012 with a 14-0 vote, individuals who have misdemeanors of the 3rd and 2nd degree can apply to have the records expunged if they have kept a clean record for 7 and 10 years respectively.

Democratic Senator Tim Solobay is adamant about getting this bill to pass after a similar senate bill, Senate Bill 1220, failed to make it to a floor vote. Solobay has been cited stating that the major intent of this bill is to offer more opportunities for former offenders to find jobs, and consequently lower recidivism rates. If this Bill passes, those who are eligible under the new expungement law can potentially change their lives and remove the stigma that follows a criminal judgment.

This bill however, does not apply to all misdemeanor offenses. Specifically, it does not apply to offenses punishable by more than one year in prison or pertaining to certain forms of assault, sex offense, cruelty to animals, firearms offenses, and certain other crimes. The bill also notes that expungement is not automatic and will still be granted solely at the discretion of the court.

The California Court of Appeals published its ruling in Law Offices of Mathew Higbee v. Expungement Assistance Services.

The case may be of special importance to lawyers, said attorney Cynthia Underwood, one of the attorneys who worked on the case.  “This case also makes it clear that lawyers can sue those who are engaging in unauthorized practice of law,” said Underwood.  “Unauthorized practice of law is a wide-spread problem that law enforcement cannot effectively prevent it by itself.  This case will allow attorneys to assist the public and protect their law practices by filing lawsuits to stop unauthorized practice of law.”

This case stems from a California Superior Court case, filed in January of 2008, where a law firm, The Law Offices of Mathew Higbee, sued a Kentucky based business, Expungement Assistance Services (EAS), for unlawful acts, including fraud and the unauthorized practice of law.    The Law Offices of Mathew Higbee, which later became the Law Firm of Higbee & Associates, operates RecordGone.com.  Expungement Assistance Services (which later became EAS Technologies LLC), operated ClearMyRecord.com (which later became ShredMyRecord.com).

Higbee alleged that the fraudulent and unlawful acts by Expungement Assistance Services were hurting consumers as well as the law firm.

The trial court ruled that the law did not allow a plaintiff who had no business dealing with defendant to sue the defendant.   The Court of Appeals unanimously disagreed with the trial court, and even directed the clerk of the court to send a copy of the opinion to the Attorney General, presumably for law enforcement action.

The published opinion can be found at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/G046778.PDF

Unscrupulous web site operators are going to great lengths to cause embarrassment for people with criminal records, even records that have been expunged or sealed.   If you have been arrested in the past several years, there is a chance that your mugshot and arrest details are easily available online or will be soon, even if your case has already been sealed or expunged. These web sites are obtaining old mugshot photos and publishing them online in hopes that it will cause people embarrassment and get them to pay hundreds of dollars to have their mugshot removed from each site.   With nearly 100 mugshot sites out there, the cost for removal could cost more than $10,000 if a person were to pay for each one.

A mugshot is often the most embarrassing record a person can have associated with their name. In one of the most competitive job markets in our country’s history, having an arrest record available online – complete with an unflattering photograph – will often completely ruin a qualified worker’s chances for employment. Friends, family, potential employers, and co-workers are just a Google search away from stumbling on a record of your arrest, often with the most shaming photo prominently displayed.

These web sites are taking the information from law enforcement websites or using public information requests to obtain mugshots and arrest records.  Often the data gets pulled from law enforcement websites and posted to the private company’s database and website automatically en masse, so site administrators do not verify any of the information, such as whether charges have been dropped or whether the record has been sealed or expunged.

While these sites are not meant to provide accurate criminal records, many visitors will construe your mugshot to mean that you were charged and convicted of the crime, even if that is not the case.  Making matters worse, these websites typically appear at the top of search engine results.  These companies justify the publication of mugshots by claiming it will deter people from engaging in criminal activity and that it enhances public safety by educating the community.  This may have been true historically with law enforcement websites; however, based on the way the majority of these private companies are currently operating, it seems clear that their motives are purely financial.

The companies who operate these web sites often use a separate but related company to charge individuals hundreds of dollars to remove a photo.  The fees charged to remove your mugshot can range from $99 to $399, and typically each fee only covers removal from a single website.  It can be a very frustrating and costly process to get your mugshot removed from all the websites.

“What they are doing is illegal,” says attorney Natasha Buchanan. “However, prosecuting them and suing them is difficult because they operate behind hidden identities and offshore companies.  Suing them would cost tens of thousands of dollars.”

THERE IS A SOLUTION

RecordGone.com’s Mugshot Removal and Prevention Service can save you the embarrassment of having your mugshot appear online.   The service will help keep your mugshot off of more than 80 leading mugshot sites.  If it is already on a site, the Removal and Publication Prevention service will get it removed and prevent it from being published on our covered sites for 5 years.

If your mugshot is not yet appearing online, but you would like to prevent it from being published in the future, we also offer a Mugshot Publication Prevention service that provides coverage for 5 years, and if your mugshot is published on any of our covered sites during those five years, we will get it removed for you within 30 days of you notifying us.

We charge $399 for the Mugshot Removal & Publication Prevention Service, which can be broken down into 2 payments of $199.50.  We charge $139 for the Mugshot Publication Prevention Service. If you are a former client who signed up for our ECDU service, you will receive a $50 discount on either of our two Mugshot services.  If you are interested in learning more about our Mugshot Removal and Publication Prevention services or to sign up online, please visit Record Gone’s Mugshot Removal Service or call our office at 877-573-7273.

A new online searchable database is now available on the Judiciary’s website and will allow anyone with access to the Internet to seek information on criminal convictions in any New Jersey Superior Court. A searchable database of criminal convictions enables any user to search criminal case information by name or docket number. Each public record contains information regarding the criminal charge, the filing date, status, and the disposition of each case.

The Criminal Conviction Public Access system now conveniently provides public access to statewide criminal docket information for all cases filed after 1994. Previously, searching for court records from public access terminals was a tedious multi-step process. Now any user is able to obtain criminal case information on any criminal case statewide on any computer.

The new online database is part of a comprehensive plan to make court information and records available to the public, according to Judge Glenn A. Grant, who stated in a press release: “We are continuing to leverage our existing resources to provide more access, transparency, and more convenience to the public.” ¹

The only cases that cannot be found through the new system are cases that have not been resolved and expunged cases. For more information on how to clear your New Jersey Criminal Records, visit www.recordgone.com/newjersey/ and take a free online eligibility test.

¹ http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/pressrel/2012/pr120627a.htm

The New Jersey Superior Court has recently made criminal records available for the public to view.

This access makes it easier for employers to look into the past of their potential employees and it replaces the longer and more expensive method that employers previously had to undertake. This new ease of access allows employers to not only find potentially harmful information, but it also allows them to take the information into consideration when determining whether or not to hire a job candidate.

While an employer may feel that having access to these records is a benefit, it can be detrimental to a potential employee’s chances of obtaining employment if the employer comes across any criminal history information that they find to be undesirable. Employers can use this tool to discriminate against candidates with a criminal record, regardless of how old the conviction is or how far the employee has progressed since his or her conviction. Background checks used to be a longer and more expensive process, which meant that they were scarcely used by employers, and when they were used it was for the intention of finding severe crimes that were pertinent to their field of business. Employers can now peruse any job candidate’s criminal history, and they have the sole discretion on whether or not to use the information when considering a job applicant. This can lead to unfair hiring practices, and may disqualify a job candidate that has a minor offense in his or her past even if they are more experienced and better suited for a job than other applicants.

Even the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, an institution standing for freedom of equality, had problems with this law change within their own company. In September 2009, the EEOC sued one of its employees that had been using criminal records as an excuse for not hiring applicants. That employer was discriminating against black, Hispanic, and male job applicants. Since then, the EECO has updated the guidelines that employers must follow when dealing with a candidate with a criminal record. Although, once an employer is aware that a job candidate or an employee has a criminal record is it unlikely that they can remain entirely objective.

An employer may screen candidates and still be in accordance with federal law, but this may not be a “defense according to the Guidance.” EECO even claims that “it is conceivable that some employers may find themselves forced to decide whether to comply with state or local law or face potential Title VII liability.” The only way for candidates to be certain that employers will not see their criminal record is if the case was filed before 1994, if the case has not been resolved yet, or if the case has already been expunged. While this new access to criminal history comes with many benefits for employers, it comes with an equally negative effect on job applicants with criminal history, and it has yet to be determined if it is worth the price of possible discrimination.

Therefore, it is important that you clear your record as much as possible so you can move forward with your life. Expungement is a wonderful investment for your future and allows you to apply for employment without having to worry. If you need help determining if you are eligible for record clearing, visit http://www.Recordgone.com.

“We are always excited when we succeed for our clients,” said attorney Jennifer Strange.  “However, succeeding for the 10,000^th time is particularly exciting.”

Mathew Higbee, the attorney who founded the law firm, said reaching 10,000 cases cleared is a group effort.   “This accomplishment is testimony to our talented team— all of whom are committed to the success of our clients, our business partners who have helped make our services more effective, and our clients who earned the relief they received,” said Higbee.

RecordGone.com, which is a division of the Law Firm of Higbee & Associates, provides post-conviction relief in 14 states.   RecordGone.com was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America in 2012.

The Better Business Bureau has recently announced the award rating of “A+” to RecordGone.com for honoring commitments in outstanding customer service. The rating is an increase from the “A” rating that the law firm has had since 2008.

Former client Jeffrey J. from Orange, FL described his experience with RecordGone.com as “professional, courteous, and prompt,” while John J. from Dallas, TX expressed that RecordGone.com is “top notch, top drawer, the best ever.”

RecordGone.com’s staff member, Case Manager for Pennsylvania and New York Aubrey Feriante, states her experience at RecordGone.com is “extremely enjoyable” in “helping clients move forward from mistakes from the past and move onto bigger and better opportunities that they once were not able to obtain.”

Ms. Feriante’s gratification in exercising her skill set of providing what she calls “Total Customer Service: Smile, Listen, Empathize, Solve, and Follow Up” to every client extends across the board at RecordGone.com. The commitment to expert, up-to-date customer service continues thanks to loyal customers and an enthusiastic staff.

The Better Business Bureau is a leader in “advancing marketplace trust” by compiling information regarding a company’s performance and integrity with consumers.