Lasting Effects of DUI

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

Most likely, your concern when arrested for DUI is your immediate freedom and restoration of driving privileges. These are very pressing concerns because a DUI conviction typically leads to loss of driving privileges and prison terms.

However, there are long-lasting effects that you need to handle after settling your immediate concerns. Aside from the economic effects, the criminal record or history will haunt you forever.

It will be much worse if your DUI offense was as a felony. This consideration would depend on the case specifics (habitual offender, property damage with high value, serious injury/accident/or death, etc.).

So if you have a felony DUI, then you need to reduce it to a misdemeanor at least. Your DUI attorney can help you with this. Basically, you would need to obtain a “pardon” by petitioning your state Governor and requesting for a conversion of your felony case to a mere misdemeanor.

Then, once pardon is obtained, you can go through an “expungement” process where your misdemeanor record can be cleared. Of course, this may not be granted to all cases, but there’s no harm in trying. Again, it’s important to do all these with the help of your DUI attorney. You can search online for various attorney directories in order to find the right professional help that you seek.

Tags: attorney directories, criminal record, dui, dui attorney, expungement, pardon
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Effects and Eligibility for Expungement

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Expungement is a process ordered by the court wherein a legal record such as an arrest or criminal conviction is erased. The availability and procedure of expungement varies according to the county or state where the arrest or the conviction occurred.

In order to qualify, there must be certain standards met to be eligible for expungement. These factors include:

• -Amount of time elapsed since the arrest/conviction.
• -Events in the criminal record of the applicant (including arrests/convictions in other states)
• -The nature and severity of the arrests/convictions (i.e. a sex offense conviction may be denied for expungement)
• -The nature and severity of other arrests/convictions in the criminal record of the applicant

When a person’s criminal record is expunged, he or she may not mention the arrest or conviction record. For example, this record does not need to be disclosed in renting an apartment or applying for a job. Also, no record will appear if the potential employer conducts a background search.

An expunged record is actually not completely erased. However, it cannot be accessed easily. The limited accessibility is only open to the criminal courts, law enforcements, and other government agencies. This is sometimes referred as “under seal” criminal records.

Tags: arrest, court, Criminal, criminal conviction, expungement, legal record
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