Tampa Sealing Attorneys are often asked about the differences between sealing and expunging a criminal charge in Florida. Sealing a criminal charge provides less privacy and protections than expungement, but still protects individual’s one-time criminal charges from gathering further public attention.
Sealing a charge results in the criminal file still being kept by the Clerk of Court and the arresting agency, but the criminal file is in a physically sealed file. A court order is required to unseal the record to gather additional information. Like expungement, the original file is still recorded by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the electronic record is deleted from public access through the Clerk of Court’s website.
Unlike expungement, a withhold of adjudication is required for a criminal charge to be sealed. As your Tampa expungement attorney, we will investigate the disposition of the case and ensure that the proper pre-requisites are met. The sealing of records is covered by Florida Statute Section 943.059.
If you or someone you know have questions concerning expunging or sealing criminal charges, contact the Tampa Sealing Attorneys of Hackworth Law for a free case consultations. We have handled many of these issues throughout Florida. If you would like to contact one of our Tampa expungement attorneys immediately, please use the “contact us now” tab. We appreciate your time in checking out our Tampa expungement blog and look forward to hearing from you.