Expungement in the State of Colorado

 

If you have been convicted of a Colorado crime and finished serving out your sentence, chances are you’ve started to discover differences in the way you live your life and how you are treated. You now have to disclose information about your conviction on job and housing applications, making it more difficult for you to find work and get a place to live. You may have even realized that there are certain Colorado licenses for which you are no longer eligible once people discover you have a conviction on your record. Many Coloradans, once they live through this, make the decision to have their criminal records expunged.

 

Expungement is a process whereby an individual’s past criminal history is sealed, erased, or destroyed, making it appear like the record never existed in the first place. It is allowed by the federal government, but each state has their own rules about expungement, and some states won’t allow it at all! Thankfully, Colorado is not one of those states, though there are specific rules that one must follow to apply for Colorado expungement, and not all crimes are allowed to be expunged.

 

What happens in Colorado if your record is expunged?

 

For juvenile cases in Colorado, any and all documentation related to your record (including files from local law enforcement, the department of human services, and the district attorney) can be sealed away and erased so that no one can view it. The only agency that may request it is the United States military. If you apply to join the armed forces, then they may ask to see your record before deciding whether or not to allow you to join.

 

Also, if a driver who is a minor is charged with a crime related to driving while intoxicated, it is possible that they can have their criminal records expunged once they have met the conditions of Colorado Statute 42-2-121.

 

Adults seeking expungement don’t have it quite so easy. Under Colorado law, only certain forms of documentation are eligible to be expunged in adult cases. These include all records that relate to the apprehension, detention, arrest, detection, trial, or disposition of an individual in relation to an offense. Documentation that cannot be expunged includes civil lawsuits, judgments, and property deeds. One thing that is nice about Colorado’s expungement laws is that not only conviction records, but arrest records as well are erased.

 

Who can receive expungement in Colorado?

 

Under Colorado Statute 19-1-306, most juvenile records are eligible for expungement – regardless of the circumstances. When the individual is being adjudicated, the court will inform him or her of the right to expunge their records from the juvenile probation department or the juvenile parole department. After the records are sealed, nothing with any personal information will be allowed to be disclosed to the public, including information related to the identification of the individual, a list of the state agencies involved, a list of the local agencies involved, and any people who had contact with the person in question. No district attorneys, local law enforcement agencies, or department of human services employees will receive these records, nor will they be made available to them.

 

After expungement has occurred, these records will only be able to be obtained if an agency petitions the court with sufficient evidence and cites probable cause. In this case, a hearing will be held before the documentation is released.

 

For adults, the Colorado court can expunge records related to an offense of drunk driving, but only if the convicted person had a BAC between .02 and .05; the individual also must petition the court with a request for expungement and meet a host of requirements, including:

 

• Provide accurate information to the court
• Be over the age of 21
• Any court action related to the offense must be completed
• Individual must not have been convicted of any other offense before turning 21
• All fines related to the conviction must be paid, and all requirements completed

 

Colorado also allows a specific kind of expungement in cases where an individual was accused of a crime but later acquitted, had the charges dismissed, where charges were not even made, and in certain instances of driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence. For these cases expungement can also refer to erasing all DNA records and fingerprints associated with the case.

If you would like to expunge a crime for your record, you may want to seek the help of a Colorado attorney who knows the process.