You must wait five years after completing your sentence to request a criminal record expungement. On the other hand, if you were convicted of a drug-related offense, you can seal, but not delete, your record after three years of serving your sentence. Some crimes have a mandatory waiting period before they can be sealed or eliminated. For example, some arrests related to the Cannabis Control Act and the Illinois Controlled Substances Act, as well as some others, may be eligible for sealing after 3 years and disposal after 5 years.
Your lawyer can help you make the right decision if you qualify for any of them. Under the new law, some convictions for drug possession will be automatically eliminated. If you received a conviction for possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis and the conviction was not related to a more serious crime, it is likely that your conviction will be automatically pardoned and removed from your record. If your record is not eligible for expungement, all is not lost; it is possible to seal criminal convictions that are not eligible for expungement.
Figuring out what crimes can't be eliminated in Illinois can be tricky, so for most people, it makes sense to talk to a local expungement lawyer. A deleted criminal charge is not visible in background checks, and employers cannot consider a dropped charge when making hiring decisions. If you were convicted of possession of between 30 and 500 grams of marijuana, you can request a criminal record expungement on your own behalf. For those who have been arrested for a crime, or arrested and charged with a crime but not convicted, they may be eligible to have their records sealed or deleted.
To find out if your arrest record can be deleted or sealed, your best bet is to read the Criminal Record Clearing and Sealing section of the Office of the State Appeals Ombudsman website. However, you can request a criminal record expungement immediately after your case has been dismissed or you have been acquitted. Working with an attorney for your expungement is not costly and will save you a lot of time and effort navigating the process. From now on, the law requires that those who want to remove or seal their criminal records pass a drug test 30 days before filing their petition with the court.
Once the governor grants the pardon, the state attorney general will recommend removal from the register. He has extensive experience handling all types of criminal cases, from sexual crimes and domestic violence to crimes related to retail theft, murder and drug offenses. As mentioned above, the best way to find out if your record can be sealed is to carefully read the materials found in the Criminal Record Clearing and Sealing section of the Office of the State Appeals Ombudsman website. If you were arrested for a crime, or you were arrested and charged with a crime but you were not convicted, your file may be eligible to be removed or sealed.
Yes, that's right, expunging a criminal record or sealing records in Illinois currently depends on passing a drug test, but this bill will change all that.
