Recent Changes to Louisiana’s Expungement Law – Expunging An Arrest From Your Criminal Record

We've been blogging about the recent changes to Louisiana’s expungement law. This blog explains how you can obtain an expungement for an arrest. Obviously if you have a conviction you want to get that expunged. However, not all arrests lead to convictions, or even a prosecution. Nevertheless, an arrest could cost you that new job you've worked hard to get so don’t take a chance – get it expunged.

Let’s say you went to a party with some friends and had a few drinks. On the way home you’re stopped by the police for suspicion of DUI. During the stop the police search your car and see drugs on the floorboard that one of your friends discarded. The friend remains silent and you have to take the charge because it’s your car after all. You’re arrested for DUI and possession of drugs. Obviously, this does not look good to prospective employers.

However, you hire an experienced criminal attorney (such as myself) and he convinces the District Attorney that the case against you is not a good one and you are not prosecuted: your attorney proves that the police officer forgot to calibrate the Intoxilyzer and thus the results are invalid. Also, your attorney proves that the drugs were located on the passenger side floorboard and that you were driving the car. Not likely that you put the drugs there and more likely someone who was in the back seat did. Boom! Out of the woods right?

Not really. Even though you were not prosecuted your criminal record still shows that you were arrested for DUI and possession of drugs. The vast majority of employers will take a pass on hiring you. What can be done about this?

You can get the arrest record expunged under Article 976. There is no set waiting time to get an arrest expunged if any of these conditions are met:

1.     You are not prosecuted for the offense and the time period that the DA has to prosecute you for the offense is expired. How long this time period is depends on the crime. It is longer for felonies than misdemeanors. An experienced attorney can tell you if this has occurred.

2.     The District Attorney declines to prosecute any offense arising out of the arrest.  If the DA goes on record as stating they are not going to prosecute then you don’t have to “run out the clock” on the time period. Again, an attorney can help you determine this.

3.     You are prosecuted but an attorney gets the case dismissed in court, gets the charges quashed or wins your trial. As you can see, hiring a good defense attorney has a direct effect on your ability to get an arrest expunged.

If you need help expunging your criminal record of a misdemeanor or felony arrest please contact attorney Rhett Spano at 225-387-8327 or rspano@gmail.com for a free consultation. You can also get more information from my website at www.rhettspanolaw.com.