Today’s post regarding Louisiana's new expungement law answers the
question, “how do I know if I am eligible to have my conviction expunged?” A
conviction on your criminal record can mean the denial of a hard sought job.
Trust me, you don’t want to go through the experience of being denied a job because of a conviction on your criminal record.
You are eligible to have your criminal conviction expunged
if:
1.
At the time of your sentencing the judge
sentenced you under Article 893 (felony conviction) are Article 894
(misdemeanor conviction). After you completed your sentence, the conviction was
set aside in the prosecution was dismissed under Article 893 or 894 in court.
2.
Even if when you were originally sentenced it
was not under Article 893 or 894, you are still eligible to have your
conviction expunged if:
However, the following misdemeanor convictions are not
eligible for expungement:
1.
If it arose from circumstances involving a sex
offense (LSA-R.S. 15:541).
2.
A misdemeanor conviction for domestic abuse
battery which was not dismissed pursuant to article 894(B).
A new and welcome change to the expungement law is the
provision of multiple misdemeanor convictions. Under the new law, a person can
have a misdemeanor expungement once every five (5) years. However, the
expungement of a conviction for a DUI 1st or 2nd offense
(misdemeanor) can occur only once every ten (10) years.
There are certain felony convictions that cannot be
expunged. These are defined as “crimes of violence” and are listed in LSA-R.S.
14:2(B), which is over forty (40) in number. A sex crime against a minor is
also not eligible to be expunged. A welcome change to the expungement law is
the eligibility of certain drug crimes for felony expungement. Under the
previous law certain felony level drug offenses were not expungement. The new
law allows for the expungement of some of these offenses, as well as possession
with the intent to distribute (PWIT) crimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment