A Clean Criminal Record – Iowa Law

According to a new Wall Street Journal article, and from the experiences I have seen working out of my law office, people are trying more and more to expunge, or erase their criminal histories.

A criminal history creates a unique problem for some charged with a criminal offense in Iowa.

Aside from the small exception for Public Intoxication convictions, the only way to plead guilty to a charge and have it expunged from your record is to obtain a deferred judgment.  There are no post-sentencing methods to erase (non Public Intox) convictions from your record in Iowa.

Even if someone of the highest status were to obtain the theoretical governor’s pardon, the charge may still show up as “pardoned” as opposed to being erased, or expunged, entirely.

Now, what is “expungment” anyway?  The legislature does not do a good job of providing us a definition.

One thing is certain, when a charge is “expunged” it is no longer a “conviction.”  This is very important, and for a large percentage of situations, this is all that matters.  When the job application says, “Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?”  Someone with an expunged charge can say “no” and be totally correct.

Physically, in Johnson County (Iowa City) anyway, an expunged file is removed from the normal stacks of criminal files, and it is placed into the “sealed” box.  Nobody, no judges, lawyers, police or the defendant themselves, is allowed to look at the sealed file without a court order.  Furthermore, the entire record of the case will be removed from the Iowa Courts Online public database.  (Again, other counties may do this differently.)

So, for most all practical purposes, an expungment can make the case like it never happened.  In some ways, this is better than a dismissal.  A dismissal means that no guilt was ever established.  But that charge will still remain online, despite there being no conviction.  An expunged charge should be invisible online.

How does one go about getting a charge expunged?  Two words:  Deferred judgment.

Iowa’s deferred judgment procedure is what allows a defendant to be given the opportunity to expunge the charge after a successful period of probation.

The moral of the story is to plan ahead, and get that deferred judgment, so that you are not stuck in the position of looking for an expungment that is legally impossible in the state of Iowa.

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