Once a Florida expungement attorney has obtained your certificate of eligibility, the next step in sealing your record is to prepare, draft, and file a petition to seal a criminal record. As was mentioned in the previous section, a Florida expungement attorney must follow very specific rules and statutes when it comes to filing a petition to seal your record.
STEP 2: Filing the Petition to Seal Your Record
Before a judge can consider an expungement attorneys petition to seal your record, the petition must contain very specific elements. These elements are listed in the Florida statutes. If any one of the elements are missing from the petition to seal your record, the petition will be denied for being facially insufficient. The following section will address each of the various requirements that must be met by a petition as well as the necessary elements that must be included in a petition in order to successfully seal your record.
- First and foremost, a petition to seal your record must contain the certificate for eligibility that was issued by the Florida Department of Law enforcement.
- Next, the petition must contain a sworn statement from the applicant that includes the following 4 elements:
- A statement that the applicant has never been adjudicated guilty of a criminal offense or a comparable ordinance. This means, that the applicant must not have ever been convicted of a crime. Additionally, this portion of the applicant sworn statement must include a statement that here she was never adjudicated delinquent of any misdemeanor or felony listed in Florida Statute ยง943.053(3)(b). (As was mentioned in the prior section, this statute includes offenses such as assault, battery, cruelty to animals, and the like.)
- Next, the applicant must state that here she has never been adjudicated guilty or delinquent of any act stemming from the arrest in question.
- The applicant must also state that he or she has never sealed a record prior in the past.
- Finally, the applicant must state that here she is otherwise eligible to seal his or her criminal record to the best of their knowledge and does not have any other petitions to seal a record pending before any other court.
Once your expungement attorney has finished writing your petition to seal your record, he/she will then file the petition with the appropriate court. Determining which court to file the petition with is extremely important. If a petition is not filed with the appropriate court it will be denied for lack of jurisdiction. However determining which court to file the petition and is very simple. All one needs to do is figure out which judicial circuit your case was originally prosecuted in. Your petition to seal your record must be filed in the same judicial circuit as where your case was originally handled.
Once your expungement attorney files the petition to seal your record, the case will then proceed to the argument phase. In the coming section we will describe what happens when your case enters the argument phase and is brought before a judge for a final decision.