Expunging The Records When Defendant Found Not Guilty
While it is a great thing to be found "not guilty" by the courts if you are charged, it is far better to have never been charged at all. There are always those who will suspect that you got away with something, or that "not guilty" does not mean "innocent", it just means that there was not enough evidence to convict you. For instance, would you let a guy who had been charged with child molestation but found not guilty run your day care center for children?
Expungements in cases where there have been not-guilty findings should be freely granted, and the court "shall" grant the sealing of the record unless the "legitimate needs, if any, of the government to maintain those records" outweigh the former defendant's interest in clearing his record. Ohio Revised Code Section 2953.52(B)(2)(d).
Ohio's Tenth District Court of Appeals recently addressed this issue in the context of a person who had stolen a large amount of money. The Court held that an offender is not finally discharged for purposes of the expungement statute, R.C. 2953.32(A)(1) if the offender still owes restitution.
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| Ohio's First District Court of Appeals recently found that a trial court's denial of the expungement of the records for a man found "not guilty" of hitting a police horse (after a four day trial) was reversible error since the prosecutor did not object to the expungement. State v. Garry, 2007 Ohio App. LEXIS 4344 (September 21, 2007) Hamilton Co. App. No. C-060976. The Court reasoned that "In America, people are presumed innocent unless tried and convicted. In this case, the defendant was tried and found not guilty, but continues to suffer punishment in the form of a criminal arrest record. This we cannot allow." |
But in the case of State v. Schwartz, 2005 Ohio App. LEXIS 2954 (June 24, 2005) Hamilton Co. App. No. C-040390, Ohio's First District Court of Appeals examined a situation where there was a societal interest in not expunging the record of a not guilty finding. In that case the defendant was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The Court reasoned that the decision not to expunge the record in that case should be left up to the discretion of the trial court, and so long as the trial court did not abuse its discretion, reversal was improper.
The difference between the two cases seems to be that in Schwartz the prosecutor objected, and insanity is a thing that police officers might need to know about for their saftey in dealing with persons they come into contact later. However, a finding that a man did not hit a police horse is not something very useful to the police to know in the future.
Continue on to our complete guide to Ohio expungement law
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