Interviewer: What will an expunction not do?
Gary Churak: That’s kind of a broad question. The idea of an expunction is to remove the case forever from the databases. The only situation that an expunction will not do is sometimes dealing with the federal government on security background checks and high-security clearance deals. It’s possible that even with an expunction the feds can find out about it. I had a situation where the kid was trying to get in the army and there was no record of the criminal case, but somehow or another they found that expunction was filed, so they started asking him about what the expunction was about. Of course, he didn’t answer it, but if he doesn’t answer it, he’s not getting into the military. The feds are a different animal. For the most part, an expunction is forever and you can say goodbye to the criminal case.
How Does Traffic Offense Expunction Work.
Interviewer: Here’s one that we kind of touched on a little bit here, but we’ll go back to this just for the sake of the Q&A format. I believe it’s question number nine. Can a traffic offense such as a DUI be expunged?
Gary Churak: Offenses under the motor vehicle code, like a DWI or a DUI, would depend on the same situation that we talked about previously. If it’s a Class C misdemeanor DUI and you get deferred adjudication probation, then you can do an expunction. If you’re arrested for DWI and the case is dismissed, you can do an expunction. If you’re found not guilty, you can do an expunction. There’s no difference between traffic offenses under the motor vehicle code for DUI and DWI and other criminal cases.
