I will again be taking a break from my series on DUI and be looking at post conviction relief. There are several different ways in which this works and this article is not meant to be exhaustive. Please if you have questions give us a call at 559441-1418.
Post conviction relief is meant to be “rehabilitative” in nature, meaning that while there may be some release from the penalties and disabilities resulting from the conviction, the fact of the conviction remains and carries significant consequences.
This is an important distinction some of the information regarding post conviction relief is wrong and not explained properly by defense attorneys.
For most non government and non licensed positions post conviction relief can be very helpful. However, for any postion in law enforement or in a position that requires licensing the conviction must be disclosed.
I believe it is still worth it to get the conviction taken care of through certain legal avenues. It looks like you have rehabilitated and taken care of the things which led to the conviction.
PC 1203.43
AFTER SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF DEJ/DEOJ.
WHAT IT DOES
allows the court the court to invalidate a conviction due to misinformation. This is limited to certain cases, regarding information about the consequences of the guilty plea to a dej/deoj conviction.
because pc 1000 says that if a defendant successfully completes dej program the charges are dismissed and the guilty plea is not a conviction “for any purpose”
However, under immigration law and several employment law statutes, the dej dismissal provides only rehabailitativer relief. This means you must still report the conviction however, as stated above the relief still looks good and should be sought. And if you were given advice that stated that otherwise you may under certain circumstances go back to court to plea that and have the conviction completely wiped out due to you relying on misinformation.
You should certainly seek legal advice when attempting to do this as it could be very tricky.
PC 1473.3
WHEN Applies to any conviction where the non-citzen is no longer imprisoned or restrained and can show either that 1. the conviction is legall invalid due to prejudicial legal adice regarding the immigration consequences of the plea; or the failure to investigate or negotiate the immigration consequences or 2. There is newly discovered evidence of actual innnocens.
WHAT IT DOES
Allows the court to invalidate the conviction. If the plea is vacated the conviction ceases to exist for any purpose and voids its immigration consequences.
NEW LAW
236.14
Relief granted pursuant to this bill can reasonably be described as true expungement a pc 236.14 if the person was convicted of a prostitution related offense that was non-violent and a direct result of being a victim of human trafficking than the court may vacated the concition and order the records of the conviction be destroyed. vacate means that the arrest and any adjudications or convictions suffered by the petitioner are deemed not to have occurred. and all the records in the case are to be sealed and destroyed pursuant to this section.
additionally a petitioner who has obtained an order purusant to this section may lawfully deny or refuse to acknowlege an arrest, conviction, or adjudication that is set aside pursuant to the order.
This means the case is trully expunged. And a person that is victimized as a human trafficking victim can have this matter taken off there record and it will not be used agains them. For example if a women is trafficked that came from out of the country say thailand and she is attempting to gain citzenship this section can be very helpful to her in staying in this country.
The difference between the above statute and the more traditional 1203.4 is that you must still admit the arrest and conviction except not to private non governmental postions and the arrest will still show up as the government is not required to destroy records.
If you have any question feel free to call. 5594411418.
