In Lee County through June, 132 have had their criminal records expunged. That’s on pace to be up from 151 in all of 2007.
Statewide, the number of applications is up about 36 percent – from 14,200 to 19,377 – from fiscal year 2006-07 to last fiscal year.
“With the Internet now, it’s like putting a dot of ink in a glass of milk – you can’t get it out,” said Fort Myers attorney Peter Aiken of a past arrest. “You have to do it.”
Records get one wipe
A person’s criminal history record can only be wiped clean or covered up once and only on cases without a conviction. A judge can order several arrests stemming from one incident be stricken from a person’s record, but an applicant may only get his or her record expunged once in a lifetime.
“Basically, you get one bite of the apple,” said Fort Myers attorney Michael Hornung, who estimates he handles four times as many expunction cases now than a year ago.
But not every crime is eligible to be stricken from a person’s record. Most major felonies are exempt – a list of the nearly two dozen crimes can be found on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Web site. That’s the agency responsible for processing applications.
When a person’s record is expunged, that means only certain governmental agencies can see that a person was ever charged with a crime, while anyone else cannot, said Jean Itzin, bureau chief for the criminal history and records division of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. When a record is sealed, that means anyone can see the record is sealed, but they can’t find out what the crime was.
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