Clearing Your Record – Part 2: Non-Disclosures

Happy Friday everybody. I hope you all had a great week. This week is part two of a video series we started a couple of weeks back on how to remove certain items from your criminal history. Last time in part one we talked about expunctions Now we’re going to talk about the other half of that in the state of Texas and those are non-disclosures. So when people talk about getting their records sealed a non-disclosure is typically what they’re referring to. So if you remember expunctions what those do is they completely remove an event off of your criminal history, it’s deleted legally, you act like it never happened.

A non-disclosure isn’t quite as powerful. It seals the event from all public views so your average Joe, your average citizen, wouldn’t be able to look you up and find you on the county computer or find any evidence of the arrest or the charge on the county computer because it’s sealed. However, your record does still exist and it is still accessible for law enforcement purposes so police agencies would still be able to see it, district attorneys would still be able to see it and certain governmental or licensing agencies like the nursing board or the pharmacist board or the board of psychologists those would all be able to see it as well for certain purposes.

Now non-disclosures are much more complicated than expunctions on when they’re available and who they’re available to. They’re still highly worth pursuing. So if you have an old conviction or an old case, especially one that you got deferred adjudication on because primarily those are the cases that are going to be most likely to be eligible for a nondisclosure it’s certainly worth sitting down with a lawyer and trying to figure out am I eligible to have this non-disclosed. Because like I said, while it wouldn’t remove all evidence of that case it would still seal it from most public uses so most background checks, renting an apartment, applying for a normal job. Those places wouldn’t be able to see it. So, it’s still worth checking out.

So if you have an old case or an old charge that you know you took some sort of deferred on give me a call, sit down with somebody and see if they can look it up and find it and let you know if you’re eligible to have that non-disclosure done. Because it really is worth the time and the effort to do it. As always, if you have any questions about this or anything else please let me know, drop a comment, send me an email, give me a call and I’d be happy to discuss them with you at that time. I hope everybody has a great weekend and I look forward to speaking to everybody next week.