Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Expunging a felony

I cannot give you advice becuase I am not your attorney, however, I can give you some general information about expungements.

What likely happened is you filed a form for a Petition to Dismiss under Penal Code section 1203.4. Procedurally what this does is withdraw your plea of guilty or no contest and enter a plea of not guilty then dismisses the case. You no longer have a conviction in that case. If the case was a felony, normally a 17b motion is filed at that same time and the felony is reduced to a misdemeanor before the dismissal.

If you are not currently on probation or have a case pending and you have not had a violation of your probation, the court does not have the discretion to deny the Petition. Meaning the court can't say no. What happens is the clerk or the District Attorney runs your name and rap sheet to find out and if you satifsy the requirements your petition is granted and you don't have to do anything. The order is sent to the Department of Justice so that their records include the expungement. Future searches of the court records won't find the conviction, however, if your job requires fingerprinting that is sent to the Department of Justice, the fact that you had a conviction will still show, but it will also show that the case was dismissed under 1203.4.

Most shoplifting is a misdemeanor unless the value is over $400 or there is a prior theft offense, making what otherwise would be a misdemeanor a felony.

Unless you have had two prior felonies that were serious or violent felonies three strikes wouldn't apply to you. Shoplifting is not a serious or violent felony under the law and is not something that would trigger the three strikes law. It is priorable, meaning that having a theft offense can cause a misdemeanor theft offense that comes after to be a felony rather than a misdemeanor, but that doesn't make it a "strike".

Good luck,

Elena