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Utah Expungement of Criminal Records

 

There is a lot to worry about if you get arrested and charged in the state of Utah. Will you need a lawyer? Will you be fined? Put in prison? What happens to your family, your job? How will this affect your future?

 

Well, there is one sure way that your future will be affected, regardless of the outcome of the charges and any trial that may follow: from now on, you will carry a criminal record with you for the rest of your life.

 

When you apply for jobs and it asks about your criminal history, you will have to admit to your arrest. When you try to get an apartment, a loan, or a credit card and they do a background check, the information about your arrest and charges will show up. What do you think happens when people learn about your record? It’s not a difficult answer to guess: they usually turn you down. After all, individuals with criminal records are considered higher risk than the general population.

 

So how is a person who just made a mistake able to move on with their life? One thing that can help enormously is a legal process that Utah allows called expungement. Expungement is the legal erasure of eligible criminal records so that members of the public will no longer be able to access them. No more worrying about applications or background checks. And you can even legally tell people you’ve never been arrested!

 

How can a person in Utah get an expungement?

 

Utah’s expungement process is quite involved and contains a number of different steps. It may be in your best interest to hire a lawyer – preferably the one who worked with you on your charges in the first place, since they know your case.

 

The first thing to do is get a certification of eligibility from the Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Unfortunately, this isn’t fast – it can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks. The forms can then be filed through the Criminal History Record Review as a petition, but you will need to pay a filing fee in order to do it.

 

Petitions also need to be served to:

 

  • the Department of Corrections
  • the attorney who prosecuted the case
  • the court
  • the arresting agency
  • the booking agency
  • the Division of Public Safety

 

Sole responsibility for filing these petitions is on your shoulders. After you serve the various agencies your petition, it can take up to 30 days for a decision to be made on your expungement request. These 30 days give the prosecuting attorney time to file an objection, if he or she wishes to do so, and provide the court time to do an evaluation. In the event that there is an objection, a hearing will be held, and you and the prosecuting attorney will be told the court date.

 

It is also possible that the court might ask for a written evaluation from the Department of Corrections in the course of doing their own evaluation. So long as everything is filed correctly, a hearing date should be set by the court around 15 days later and everyone will be notified.

 

If there are no objections and the court rules that the individual’s expungement should be granted, they will issue a certificate and decide what parts of the case should be expunged and which the court will hang on to. In some cases, the court will grant expungement of all documentation.

 

Who is eligible for expungement in Utah?

 

Juvenile offenders can have their records expunged, but only if:

 

  • a year has passed since the termination of fines and jurisdiction
  • all fees and restitution have been paid
  • it has been a year since the release from Youth Corrections
  • the individual is over 18 years of age
  • the individual does not have an adult criminal record

 

If any of the above requirements are not met, a petition for expungement will not be granted.

 

Adults, naturally, must meet different requirements for expungement. These include:

 

  • 30 days must have passed since the date of arrest
  • no arrests may have occurred after that date
  • the individual had to be released without any formal charges being issued
  • the individual was acquitted of all charges
  • the individual was discharged without conviction and without charges within a 30-day window
  • the individual had the proceedings dismissed
  • no more than one felony or two Class A or Class B misdemeanors can have been filed
  • the individual must have been released from probation, parole, or incarceration for the length of time required
  • the individual must have paid all fines and restitution ordered

 

Provided all other requirements and stipulations are met, second and third degree felonies may be expunged after 7 years. Traffic offenses where alcohol was involved must remain on your record for 10 years, multiple Class B misdemeanors take 12 years, multiple Class C misdemeanors take 6 years, and 3 years must pass before any other infractions or misdemeanors can be expunged. If, however, charges are not filed, the person has been acquitted, or the proceedings were dismissed, expungements are eligible after 30 days.

 

Crimes that may not be expunged include:

 

  • Capital felonies
  • Felony 1
  • Felony 2
  • Sexual offenses against minors


 

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