Most, but not all, criminal records—whether conviction – or non-conviction-related—can be sealed either through an administrative process by mail after a waiting period or by a judge without waiting. The administrative procedure for sealing criminal records, as our Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer explains, involves filling in a form and mailing or delivering it to the Office of the Commissioner of Probation after a waiting period.

Conviction records can only be sealed through the administrative mailing process, except for a first-time drug possession conviction, which can also be sealed by a judge under the process for sealing non-conviction records, provided the prior offender did not violate orders of the court related to probation or a CWOF. All other cases that ended in a “not guilty” finding, a dismissal or a nolle prosequi (a prosecutor dropped the case) also can be sealed through the administrative mailing process after the same waiting periods or by a court after a hearing without a waiting period.

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Unlike with expungement, when records are sealed, they do not disappear completely; they continue to exist but become unavailable to the public. Not only will the public be unable to access the underlying records, but there will also be no public indication that there is any sort of sealed record. However, the raw data (identifying information) of such records continues to be available to law enforcement officials, including police, probation officers, and courts Sealed conviction records are additionally available to “appointing authorities,” while sealed non-conviction records are not.

Similar protections for prior offenders seeking to seal conviction and non-conviction records against discrimination on the basis of sealed records in the context of employment, housing, professional licenses, and public service, though it appears that sealed non-conviction records are even less accessible to employers and the public than sealed conviction records: an employer may inquire about sealed felony convictions, though not on the initial application, but once an applicant proceeds to an interview, but employers cannot ask about and are unable to access sealed non-conviction records subject to narrow exceptions.

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In general, sealing of records of criminal proceedings has been reserved for exceptional cases. Because both proceedings and case files have already been publicly accessible, defendants must convince the court or administrative body that their privacy rights have not been lost irretrievably.

In 2010, the Legislature enacted extensive reforms to the CORI scheme, extending access to official CORI records to more employers, housing providers, and other organizations, for limited use, and simultaneously broadening the scope of the sealing provisions to enable more individuals to shield their records from public view.

Source: https://t-tees.com
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